London, England (Sports Network) - Reigning champion and two-time winner
Andy Murray and four-time titlist Andy Roddick were a pair of second-round
upset victims at the hands of Frenchmen Wednesday at the $785,000 Aegon
Championships, a grass-court Wimbledon tune-up.
The top-seeded Murray was knocked out by Nicolas Mahut 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 7-6
(7-1), while the seventh-seeded Roddick succumbed to Edouard Roger-Vasselin
6-4, 4-6, 7-5 at The Queen's Club. Mahut swatted 13 aces past Murray in their
2-hour, 35-minute affair, while Roddick crushed 22 aces in a losing effort
against Roger-Vasselin, who popped 13 aces himself on Day 3.
Murray and Roddick each received byes into the second round this week.
The three-time Grand Slam runner-up Murray beat France's Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in
last year's Queen's Club finale.
A second-seeded Tsonga, meanwhile, avoided the upset bug by handling Brit
Jamie Baker 6-3, 6-2, while another upset came when Italian Simone Bolelli
overcame fourth-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-2).
Five other top-10 seeds moved into the third round, as
No. 5 Feliciano Lopez of Spain beat Belgian Steve Darcis 6-3, 3-6, 7-5;
No. 6 Croat Marin Cilic drubbed Aussie Matthew Ebden 6-2, 6-1;
No. 8 Frenchman Julien Benneteau outlasted Japan's Tatsuma Ito 5-7, 6-4, 7-5;
No. 9 South African Kevin Anderson got past Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6
(7-5), 2-6, 3-4, retired; and No. 10 Argentine David Nalbandian dismissed
Belgian Ruben Bemelmans 6-4, 6-2.
Six more upsets came when
Czech Lukas Rosol took out 11th-seeded Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 4-6,
6-4;
American Sam Querrey defeated 12th-seeded Uzbekistanian Denis Istomin 7-6
(7-4), 6-3;
Belgian Xavier Malisse erased 13th-seeded Russian Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-3, 4-6,
6-0;
Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov tackled 14th-seeded Luxembourger Gilles Muller 7-6
(7-1), 6-4;
Croat Ivan Dodig drove out 15th-seeded Japanese Go Soeda 6-3, 7-6 (7-3);
and Taiwanese Yen-Hsun Lu topped 16th-seeded 6-foot-10 Croat Ivo Karlovic
6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (9-7). The massive-serving Karlovic was shown the
door despite a 35-ace effort. Neither Karlovic nor Lu were able to break serve
on Day 3.
The aforementioned Ito also completed his opening-round match on Wednesday by
getting past Italian Paolo Lorenzi 7-6 (8-6), 4-6, 6-2.
The Sports Network