Day 1
Talk about painting the town blue; it's the first day of the newly sponsored AEGON Championships, formely Stella Artois, and the Queen's club really does seems to have the blues, mainly for these two reasons:
1) Nadal is not here; withdrawn with knee problems, which must be quite a sore spot for AEGON who have the number 1 on many of their corresponding brochures.
2) Two British players, James Ward and Josh Godall, have both quite quickly lost in straight sets. Ouch.
Also the Wimbledon wild cards have been announced, and there's good news for last years junior Champion Laura Robson has she will be in the main draw.
Rather surprisingly, Alex Bogdanovic has also received a wildcard, and there are a few disgruntled sounds about this at Queens, due to the British players quite poor record at the All England Club.
It's not all bad though, the rain has just about kept away for the day, and Murray's doubles match with Hewitt against Roddick and Paes, which the Brit won, was a good end to the opening day.
Notably, both Roddick and Murray saw red on a number of points where they managed to smash balls at each other.
(Photos: own property)
Apologies were given in the spirited match, although on one of the smashes, which caught the American, I'd say the Brit won the battle. Murray put up his racket in response, but with the crowd cheering, revenge was sweet.
Day 2
The weather looks a tad ominous, and so does Sebastian Grosjean, the French former top 10 player. Grosjean has lost the first set 2-6 against the spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero and it looks like he has the trainer out.
Grosjean has now retired!
Now Roddick, the number 2 seed here behind Murray, is up against Vliegen from Belgium.
More news from Nadal: he hopes to play at Wimbledon and is coming to London on the 16th.
Meanwhile Roddick is thrashing Vliegen: first set 6-1.
Roddick manages an easy win in patchy rain, final score: 6-1, 6-4.
M.Llodra of France is level with M.Fish, the 25 seed, 5-5 in the first set.
James Blake, the American 16th seed, has just come on court wearing a blue t-shirt which is merging into the blue surroundings of Queens club's new look. Anyway, he's 2-0 up against Ljubicic.
Just back from Andy Roddick press conference, and the American was quite defiant about Federer's 'greatest player ever position' but doesn't look too impressed when an American journalist asks him whether the players discuss this subject a lot.
Blake has just taken the first set 6-2, and it's 2-2 in the second with Lubjicic.
....and Blake wins, with a tie-break!
Monfils, the French 14th seed, takes hold of his match against Golubev winning the first set 6-3, amongst some spectacular slips and dives, in-fact at one point he visibly grips his wrist after landing on it.
Some of Monfils dives in this second set are reminiscent of the French Open:
Shock...Monfils has now just lost the second set.
It's a tie break in the third....and Monfils goes through.
Now I'm off to try and get home without using a tube because of the strikes, should be interesting!
Day 3
It was an absolute nightmare getting to the Queen's Club this morning; buses jam-packed and grumpy passengers.
But, something did make me smile as I walked towards Queen's, and that was surprisingly a ticket tout, who I spotted on Monday wearing a very swish suit and holding a gentlemen-like umbrella, today, however, he was in jeans and a bomber jacket. Clearly his initial swarve ploy was not very successful.
From now on I shall be updating scores from Twitter to the right of this screen.
Great match for Murray as he sweeps past the Italian Andreas Seppi 6-1, 6-4.
In the second set the Scot produced a stunning drop shot to take it to 5-4 and then an absolute blinder of forehand in the next game.
Seppi hit long and Murray broke to secure the match and a place in the third round.
Everyone in the media centre is pretty impressed by that performance from the number 1 seed here, and I shall wait until 17:40 for the press conference to hear what Murray has to say about his sharp performance!
Here's my brief news report:
Andy Murray has revitalised his chances of grand slam success at Wimbledon with a supremely dominant display over Italy’s Andreas Seppi in the second round of the AEGON Championships this afternoon.
The Scot never looked under pressure at the Queen’s Club and produced some spectacular shots, including a blinding drop shot at 4-4 in the second set and a stunning forehand down the line at 5-4.
Seppi, ranked 48 in the world, hit long on Murray’s match point, but the Italian was outclassed throughout.
Murray will now go onto to face Guillermo Garcia-Lopez or Gilles Muller, who knocked out Josh Goodall in the opening around.
Murray will play Garcia-Lopez who he has never played before.
The news just released is Gael Monfils, the French number 3 seed at the AEGON Championships, has pulled out with a wrist injury.
It happened during his winning match against Andrey Golubev from Kazakstan, where he slipped a number of times, however on one particular fall, Monfils was visibly gripping his left wrist.
Was this the point at which it happened?...
In another news, Gilles Simon, the French third seed, has through against Dimitrov in two sets, both of which were tie-breaks.
Day 4
THE SUN IS SHINING!!!!
Murray sweeps past the Spanish 16th seed Garcia-Lopez, 6-4, 6-4. The Scot's looking like a rel contender for Wimbledon, especially with Fed and Nadal currently sidelined!
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