Great Britain’s Davis Cup players Jamie Baker and James Ward have both been given wild-cards for the AEGON Championships at Queens Club.

Perhaps surprisingly 3 other wildcards were awarded to non-UK players – 3 talented teenagers and perhaps the future of the men’s game were the recipient of these. 17-year-old Australian Bernard Tomic, 18-year-old American Ryan Harrison and the former Wimbledon boys’ champion, 19-year-old Grigor Dimitrov.

Baker has made a stirring comeback from a life-threatening illness over the past year. The Scot had fallen as low as No.982 in July of last year because of the illness-enforced lay-off, but has shot up more than 700 places to No.257. Meanwhile Ward qualified for the ATP event in Chennai at the start of the year, and won a set against former World No.1 Marat Safin at The Queen’s Club in 2008.

Tournament Director, Chris Kermode spoke to the press,

We always try to use our wild cards to give an opportunity to British players, young international prospects, or established players who are returning from illness or injury. We had initially given a wild card to Mario Ancic, who has been out of the game for a long time through illness, but unfortunately he has sustained a back injury and had to pull out. Jamie Baker and James Ward have both performed well since returning from illness themselves, and the teenage trio of Bernard Tomic, Ryan Harrison and Grigor Dimitrov have all got enormous potential. We look forward to seeing how they perform against a world-class field here at the AEGON Championships.

This years Queen’s Club field is one of the strongest in recent memory, with defending champion Andy Murray, the 2008 winner Rafael Nadal (currently world number 2, though could be number 1 this Monday should he win at Roland Garros), four-time Queens Club winner Andy Roddick and the current World No.3 Novak Djokovic.

Other big names who will be playing are Marin Cilic, Gael Monfils, Sam Querry and Richard Gasguet. Unfortunately Fernando Verdasco, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Ernests Gulbis have withdrawn due injury and will be replaced by American duo Robby Ginepri and Taylor Dent, and Japan’s Kei Nishikori.

You can watch Queens Club Live on the BBC and Eurosport and the tournament will begin on Monday, with draw likely to be made later today.

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.