Sports

Berdych, Dimitrov win Queen's Club openers

By Sports Network
Published | Updated

London, England (SportsNetwork.com) - Former Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych and rising Bulgarian star Grigor Dimitrov were a pair of second-round winners Tuesday at the $965,000 Aegon Championships, a grass-court Wimbledon tune-up.

The second-seeded Berdych barely got past British qualifier James Duckworth, 7-6 (7-3), 5-7, 6-4, while Dimitrov cruised past British wild card James Ward 7-5, 6-3 at the historic Queen's Club.

Also in the second round, seventh-seeded South African Kevin Anderson erased British wild card Daniel Evans 6-2, 6-3 and Sam Querrey dropped fellow American Denis Kudla 6-4, 6-3. Querrey titled here back in 2010.

In opening-round action involving seeds, Aussie Marinko Matosevic ousted No. 9 Croat Marin Cilic 6-4, 6-4; No. 10 Spaniard Feliciano Lopez foiled Serb Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 6-7 (3-7), 6-1; No. 11 Canadian Vasek Pospisil held off Italian Paolo Lorenzi 6-3, 3-6, 6-3; No. 12 Russian Dmitry Tursunov eased past Dutchman Igor Sijsling 6-3, 6-4; No. 15 Czech veteran Radek Stepanek rolled past Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 6-4, 6-1; and Victor Estrella Burgos, of the Dominican Republic, upset No. 16 Frenchman Julien Benneteau 6-7 (3-7), 6-3, 7-6 (7-3). The 2012 champion Cilic was last year's Queen's Club runner-up to three-time titlist Andy Murray.

Also in round one, former Aussie Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis, of Cyprus, overcame American Bradley Klahn 6-7 (6-8), 6-2, 6-1; Finnish veteran Jarkko Nieminen came back to best France's Benoit Paire 2-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-1); Belgian David Goffin surprised rising Austrian Dominic Thiem 6-4, 6-2; Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin outlasted Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-3, 6-7 (9-11), 6-1; Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin topped qualifier fellow countryman Farrukh Dustov 7-6 (11-9), 6-3; and Slovak Lukas Lacko nipped Aussie Matthew Ebden 7-6 (12-10), 5-7, 6-4.

The second round will conclude on Wednesday, including matches between top-seeded Australian Open champ Stan Wawrinka and the wild card Baghdatis and the third-seeded Wimbledon titlist Murray versus Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu.