London, England – Former Wimbledon runner-up Tomas Berdych was a straight-set second-round winner Wednesday at the $900,000 Aegon Championships, a grass-court Wimbledon tune-up.
The second-seeded world No. 7 Berdych handled Dutchman Thiemo de Bakker 6-1, 6-4 at The Queen's Club.
Fifth-seeded and defending champion Marin Cilic also reached the round of 16 with a 6-3, 6-4 handling of fellow Croat Ivan Dodig on Day 3.
Cilic titled here a year ago when his opponent in the final, 2002 Wimbledon runner-up David Nalbandian, defaulted the match after smashing his racquet into an advertising board and injuring a linesman in the process. Cilic lost the first set via tiebreak and was leading 4-3 in the second when the match was stopped and the Croat proclaimed the winner.
In other action involving top-10 seeds, No. 7 Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine held off Colombian Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 and four-time Queen's Club champ and former Wimbledon winner Lleyton Hewitt surprised 10th-seeded rising Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov 6-4, 6-3.
In other action involving seeds, German Benjamin Becker upended 12th-seeded Czech Lukas Rosol 7-6 (7-2), 7-5, British wild card Daniel Evans topped 13th- seeded Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-4, 6-7 (6-8), 6-4, and 16th-seeded Slovenian Grega Zemlja got past Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-5, 6-4.
Also on Wednesday, France's Kenny De Schepper beat Indian lucky-loser Rohan Bopanna 6-4, 6-3 and Aussie Marinko Matosevic received a walkover into the third round when Frenchman Michael Llodra pulled out of the draw.
The 2013 Queen's Club champ will earn $115,000.
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