Events / Editor / 10 June 2007 /

It may be just the Artois Championships nowadays but the first event of the 2007 grass-court season moves into top gear on Monday - and it's still a stellar tournament.

French Open champion Rafael Nadal tops the bill as No 1 seed and the 21-year-old Majorcan has the luxury of a day off after his exertions at Roland Garros after gaining a first-round bye.

Having made it a hat-trick of wins on the red clay of Paris - the first player to do so since Bjorn Borg 27 years ago - he now starts his bid to succeed on grass. He beat Roger Federer in four sets in a 190-minute battle where the second set was the only one the Spaniard dropped in the whole tournament on the way to his 6-3 4-6 6-3 6-4 triumph.

It's kind of Federer in reverse. While the French Open is still the one Major that eludes Federer, Nadal is now bidding to succeed on grass for the first time after being a runner-up to the Swiss ace at Wimbledon last year.

But such is the strength of this year's Artois that, world number one Federer and number four Nikolay Davydenko apart, all the other players in the world's top seven are taking part at Queen's Club, West London.

There's Andy Roddick, Fernando Gonzalez, French Open semi-finalist Novak Djokovic, Ivan Ljubicic as well as former Grand Slam winners Lleyton Hewitt and Marat Safin also chasing the 80,500 euros top prize.

British interest focuses on Tim Henman as he starts his grass-court preparations for what surely will be his final crack at Wimbledon two weeks today. The 32-year-old carries home hopes on his shoulders with world number 11 Andy Murray out injured and a big doubt for Wimbledon.

Now down at No 53 in the world rankings, Henman begins his campaign against Croatian wild card Marin Cilic, looking for a better outcome than his disappointing early exit in Paris against teenager Ernests Gulbis.

The Latvian starts out against American Robert Kendrick with fourth seed Djokovic waiting in the second round.

The pick of the first-round matches pits French quarter-finalist Igor Andreev against Frenchman Gael Monfils. The pair have met twice with Andreev, ranked No 125 in the world, having won both times against the 20-year-old ranked 73 places above him. But neither of those meetings was on grass and Monfils needs to make full use of his four-inch height advantage by making his serve count on grass.
He is trading at 2.1 with Betfair to score an opening-round win and set up a second-round clash with Max Mirnyi of Belarus or 16th seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain, who play in today's opener on Centre Court at Queen's.
Nadal will be waiting for the winner of Argentina's Juan Martin del Potro against Sweden's 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johannson. Del Potro, a 6ft 5in 18-year-old, has never met Johansson but is trading at 3.15 with Betfair to go through against the 32-year-old and meet Nadal for the second time in consecutive tournaments after losing to him in the French Open first round.

Another eye-catching match in the first round is the clash between American Mardy Fish against 6ft 10in Ivo Karlovic. Those who like to see lots of aces, will get to see what the Croatian giant of the courts - the tallest top 100 player in ATP history - can do as he pounds the ball down from all of 10 feet. Fish, at a mere 6ft 2in, will need to have his return of serve working well as they do battle.

They have met three times and Karlovic has won all three but this is their first meeting on grass.
Fish is ranked number 31 to Karlovic's 85 but the Croatian is trading at 1.51 to go through and stand one more win away from a possible third-round clash with Russian Safin.

In the bottom half American Roddick will be glad to see the back of the clay-court season after a wretched couple of months. But his big-serving game will be more suited to grass and he has a first-round bye to give him more time to get in some practice in London.

He awaits the winner of the first-round match between Czech ace Radek Stepanek and Italian Davide Sanguinetti.
Stepanek has won their three meetings, including victory in the last 32 at Queen's Club three years ago.
Australian Open runner-up Gonzalez will be another player the fans will be eager to see. He starts with a bye then can expect to face Serbian Janko Tipsarevic if he disposes of the qualifier he will tackle in the first round.
The seedings have set up a potential Roddick-Gonzalez semi-final and that could be a blockbuster while Nadal would expect to remain on course for another semi-final clash with Djokovic.

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