Events / Editor / 14 June 2007 /

Alex Bogdanovic earned a thin reward for his two wins so far in the Artois Championships at London's Queen's Club.

The wild card entry followed up his 6-4 6-4 win over Korean 13th seed Lee Hyung-Taik with a 4-6 7-6 6-3 second-round victory over fellow Brit Jamie Baker.

But now he faces second seed Andy Roddick. The American, who has been making the most of his early French Open exit by getting to grips with grass-court tennis, opened his Artois bid with a convincing win over Radek Stepanek in the second round.

Roddick, the three-times champion at Queen's, and Belgrade-born Bogdanovic have never met but the last Briton in the draw admits: "I am going to have to play some great tennis to stand a chance."

Not surprisingly, Betfair punters see Roddick as the firm favourite to win with the US star trading at 1.04 to win and 1.19 to win 2-0. Meanwhile, Bogdanovic is 22 to reach the next round and 8 to take to take a set off the world number five.

Top seed Rafael Nadal, who dropped just one set in winning the French Open over the previous fortnight, opened up his title bid at Queen's with a straight-sets win over Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina. If you want omens, that's what he did in Paris as well.

Now he faces 6ft 5in Max Mirnyi from Belarus, in what will be only their second meeting. Nadal won their first encounter but he must be careful, as Mirnyi (6.2 to beat the French Open champion) reached the third round here last year and made it to the fourth round at Wimbledon.

Even so, Nadal is the 1.18 favourite to advance and earn a potential last-eight clash with fifth seed Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia. First, though, Ljubicic would have to get past Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.

American 15th seed Robbie Ginepri has the task of taking on third seed Fernando Gonzalez, the Chilean who has not quite maintained that blistering form which swept him to the Australian Open final in January.

'Gonzo' reached the last eight at Queen's last year before losing to Roddick. He won his only meeting with Ginepri and he is trading at 1.51 on Betfair to win again.

Twenty-year-old Novak Djokovic, the Miami Masters winner, should make his fourth seeding count against 14th seed Arnaud Clement. He has only met the Frenchman once - on clay in Bucharest in 2004 - but he emerged the winner in a three-set clash. Since then he has rocketed 170 places up the rankings into the world's top 10 and he is trading at 1.21 to prove too strong for Clement (5.6).

Qualifier Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who knocked out defending champion Lleyton Hewitt in two tie-break sets on Wednesday, takes on 18-year-old wild card Croatian Marin Cilic - the man who toppled Tim Henman.

Tsonga has beaten Cilic twice in Challengers and is trading at 1.31 with Betfair to move into the last eight, with Henman's conqueror on offer at 4.1.

The action starts with Sebastien Grosjean and eighth seed Marat Safin locked at 4-4 in the deciding set in their second-round clash. The winner will meet Ivo Karlovic later in the day. Safin is available to back at 1.85, while Grosjean is on offer at 2.14.

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