Very little change in the ATP world rankings this week, with the only upward movement of Nicolas Almagro climbing two places from 20 to 18 after winning the ATP 250 title in Sweden, beating home favorite Robin Soderling in the final.

Almagro’s climb pushes Americans Sam Queerey and John Isner down to 19th and 20th respectively.

There was no change in the British top 20 this week, Richard Bloomfield was not able to build on Newport success as he was beaten by fellow Brit Alex Bogdanovic in the first round of a challenger event in California.  Despite that win for Bogdanovic he ultimately dropped ranking points after only reaching the quarter-final on the event. He reached the semi finals of the challenger in Manchester a year earlier.

On the whole for the top 20 British players, they gained 17 points to bring the total British top 20 points total to 1619, that’s excluding Andy Murray of course. 1619 points is not even enough points for the top 20 and would place them as a collective at just 24th in the rankings. Adding in Murray’s points would take them to 6774, which would see them as a collective only in 4th the same position Murray holds on his own…….and they have gained points this week!

Players in bold gained points.

The All England Club announced their wild-cards last week for the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, with only 1 wildcard of 5 granted to Jamie Baker.

The other recipients are former world No. 4 Nicolas Kiefer, recent Roland Garros round-of-16 participant Teimuraz Gabashvili,  Japanese sensation Kei Nishikori and 2009 Wimbledon junior champion Andrey Kuznetsov.

Jamie Baker joins fellow Scot Andy Murray in the main draw and with no other British players coming through qualifying, it means this will be the first Wimbledon in over 100 years with no English players in the Men’s main draw.

Britain’s number three, Jamie Baker is currently ranked 259 in the world and although he doesn’t meet the LTA’s criteria of being in the top 250 to get a wildcard for Wimbledon, a combination of injury, illness and only being a couple spots of 250 has seen him gain his wildcard.

Whilst Britain’s number two, Alex Bogdanovic is inside the world’s 250, the LTA has taken the decision that Bogdanovic has had too many opportunities without delivering any decent results.

3 Brits have made it through to the final round of qualifying for the 2010 AEGON championships.

The ATP 250 tournament better know as Queens Club has attracted a grand field this year and is the traditional warm up event for Wimbledon which will start in just over two weeks time.

British hopefuls Alex Bogdanovic, Daniel Cox and Daniel Evans are just one win away from reaching the main draw and joining the likes of Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and fellow Brit Andy Murray.

In the final matches 7th seed and British number 2 Alex Bogdanovic will play the highest seed remaining in the draw Ilija Bozoljac. The Serbian has been a mainstay inside the world 200 for the last 5 years, but has never quite broken in to the big time. He has been as high 101 in the rankings and  is currently 133. Bogdanovic under normal circumstances would have already been in the main draw with the help of a wild-card – but poor Wimbledon results and Davis Cup results have garnished massive public criticism and his days of receiving are now over. Even without wild cards though, Bogo remains Britain’s 2nd best tennis player!

Daniel Cox recorded an impressive win over the 3rd seed Grega Zemlja who is ranked at 141 in the world over 400 places higher than Cox is at the moment. The 19 year old must now face 8th seed veteran Frank Dancevic in the final round to reach the main draw.

Daniel Evans, Britain’s 5th best player and recent Davis Cup player will take on Dmitry Tursunov in the final round. Tursunov, aged 27 was a top 20 player less than 4 years and was inside the top 30 less than 18 months ago, but has steadily dropped down the rankings in the last year largely due to an ankle injury. The last time Russian was fully fit he won the grass court ATP event in Eastbourne 12 months ago.

11 British players started qualifying and just 5 made it through to the second round and when considering their was 4 all British first round matches, that’s not that bad or good with best case scenario being 7.

We will be guaranteed one Brit in the final round as British No. 6 Dan Smethurst and British No. 2 Alex Bogdanovic will meet in the second round. Smethurst was the one Brit who beat a non-Brit, dispatching Spain’s Arnau Brugues-Davi 6-1 4-6 6-4. The 7th seed for qualifying  Bogdanovic beat fellow Brit James Marsalek in the first round.

British number 5 Dan Evans will face 33 year old Ramon Delgado of Paraguay, who was ranked as high as 52 in the world back in 1999. Delgado eliminated British No. 4 Josh Goodall (world ranking 543) in the first round in tightly fought 6-3 3-6 7-6(2) win for the Paraguayan. Dan Evans had an easier win against British number 11 Alex Slabinsky 6-3 7-5.

British number 10 Joshua Milton will face 2nd seed Ilija Bozoljac from Serbia. Bozoljac has been kicking around the 100-200 mark in the world rankings for the last 5 years and has never quite broken in to the big time. He has been as high 101 in the rankings and  is currently 133, he recently qualified for the French Open.

The last Brit through to the second round is British number 12 Daniel Cox who took out British number 14 Marcus Willis in the first round winning 6-3 7-6(5). Cox will face 3rd seed Grega Zemlja who had a bye in the first round. Zemlja is currently enjoying a ranking high of 141 in the world after spending a few years down in the 300′s, he qualified for Wimbledon last year and the OZ open this year.

The Eastbourne singles event is now a Brit Free zone – After an extremely promising showing from the British men in the first round on Monday. The almost inevitable exodus occurred today.

Some of them went down fighting, Alex Bogdanavic showed that he does in deed have some class losing a very tight 3rd set tie break against world number 25 Dmitry Tursunov. He had been in the driving seat after claiming the first set on a tie break, but Tursunov hit back in the second and claimed an early break in the third set.

Bogdanavic though, who has come in for a lot of criticism in recent years for not building on the chances he been given by the LTA didn’t shrink away in the match – he broke back and asserted his dominance in the match pushing Tursunov closely in search of another break. The second break didn’t quite come and the match would be decided on a tie-break.

Bogo went a mini-break down in the tie break but hit back to level things up and at then took his chance to go himself up a mini-break at 5-3, 5-3 Tursunov though reeled off the next four points for victory.

Tursunov will play Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan in the next round. Bogdanavic now needs to build on his performance, despite losing today he showed that he does indeed have some fight in him, a criticism that has been leveled at him in the past and the main reason he was dropped from Davis Cup team despite being the highest ranked Brit available at selection when Andy Murray is ruled out.

The 3rd and 4th ranked Brits also crashed out, Josh Goodall was beaten 6-3 7-5 by Croatian Ivan Ljubicic in the second round yesterday and James Ward suffered the same fate as his compatriots as he was beaten 7-6 (8-6) 6-4 by Canada’s Frank Dancevic.

James Ward loss though was the most disappointing of the day, Dancevic is only ranked 126 in the world and has only recorded two ATP tour level wins this year. Ward had the best chances to break in the first set and when the set went to a tie break, he managed to lose the point at 6-6 from what seemed an un-loseable position, rather than volleying a clean winner he managed to find the racket of Dancevic at the Canadian returned the shot luckily into court for a winner.

Ward would have been serving for the set, but it was Dancevic that claimed the set on the next point. The second set started really badly for Ward and he looked like he had given up. He was broken in the first and third game and trailed 3-0 before he realised that the Eurosport cameras and John Lloyd were watching. He managed to secure the two breaks back and level at 3-3 but he was broken cheaply in the very next game and the match was once again lost.

All 3 players have a wild card for Wimbledon and another chance to improve their ranking.

It was a good 1st day for the Brits at Eastbourne, three of the four Brits in first round made it through to the second round of the AEGON Championships.

British number 3 and 4, James Ward and Josh Goodall actually recorded their first ATP Tour matches and were joined in the second round by British number 2 Alex Bogdanovic.

The only blip for the British men was a tightly fought loss for Colin Fleming who went down 7-6 (7-2) 1-6 6-3 to Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Taipei. Fleming had been rewarded for his performances on the challenger singles and double circuit and his doubles showing at Queens Club last week with partner Ken Skupski.

Bogdanovic defeated Ivo Minar 6-4 7-6 (7-3) to record his first ATP Tour win of the season while Goodall thrashed Tatsuma Ito 6-4 6-1 and James Ward triumphed 6-1 6-3 against Victor Crivoi, a Romanian ranked 137 places above him. Ward spoke to reporters

I’ve been looking forward to this tournament for a while and obviously getting a wildcard was great, I went out there today and played well and that will stand me in good stead for Wimbledon next week.

All three British players have both been awarded Wimbledon wildcards.

4 seeds have already fallen, including no.1 seed Igor Andreev, 3rd seed Paul-Henri Mathieu, 5th seed Mikhail Youzhny and 7th seed Andreas Seppi.

It doesn’t quite attract as many good players as Queens Club, but with the revised points system implemented by the ATP tour it means that the new Men’s AEGON Championships at Eastbourne is just as important as the AEGON Championships Queens Club. Both tournaments are now ATP World Tour 250 tennis tournaments.

The Eastbourne event had only been a women’s only event previously and the mens event was played at Nottingham, but the Nottingham tournament has come to an end and moved to Eastbourne.

Unfortunately Andy Murray is not competing, the top 4 seeds at the event are Igor Andreev, Dmitry Tursunov, Paul-Henri Mathieu and Fabrice Santoro.

The event gives British players a huge opportunity to gain valuable ATP points and experience of competing at a higher level. The draw has 4 British players including British number 2, 3 and 4  Alex Bogdanovic, Joshua Goodall and James Ward. The other Brit in the singles draw is 10th ranked Brit Colin Fleming.

Fleming is being rewarded for his good results in both singles and doubles this year, he gave up his place in the Qualifier event for the real Wimbledon Qualifier’s last week to take up his wild card here this week  after he and partner Ken Skupski did so well in the doubles at Queens and the team also gained a wild card for doubles event here at Eastbourne.

All brits have avoided any seeds in the first round. Colin Fleming takes on Yen-Hsun Lu, the player who knocked out Andy Murray in the first round of the Olympics.