LONDON – Former champions Grigor Dimitrov and Marin Cilic advanced to the last 16 at the Queen’s Club grass-court tournament as three seeded players were eliminated from the Wimbledon warmup.
Dimitrov, the 2014 champion, took out third-seeded Cameron Norrie of Britain 6-7 (2), 6-1, 6-4. Norrie was a finallist at Queen’s last year.
Another Briton, a wild card in Liam Broady, was beaten by Cilic, who won the tournament in 2012 and ’18 and also reached two more finals. Cilic won 6-1, 4-6, 7-5, AP reported.
The biggest shock saw fourth-seeded Taylor Fritz of the United States lose 6-3, 6-2 to Jack Draper, a 20-year-old British wild card ranked at No. 99.
Reilly Opelka, the eighth-seeded American, was defeated by Alex de Minaur of Australia 6-4, 6-4.
Other winners in the last 32 on day one of the tournament were Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Alexander Bublik, who advanced after Lorenzo Musetti was forced to retire after falling heavily.
Andy Murray didn’t even get to start a match at Queen’s Club.
The five-time champion opted to skip the event after sustaining an abdominal strain in the final he lost in Stuttgart.
“The tournament means a lot to me, and it´s disappointing not to compete, especially after playing some good matches on the grass already,” Murray said.
Murray is hoping to be fit enough to play at Wimbledon, which starts on June 27.
Elsewhere, No. 2 seed Simona Halep of Romania earned a 6-1, 6-4 win in 78 minutes over Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko in the first round of the Rothesay Classic Birmingham in Birmingham, England.
Halep saved six of eight break points and served up four aces to notch her first grass-court victory since winning the 2019 Wimbledon title. She missed the grass-court season last year while nursing a calf injury, Reuters reported.
American Lauren Davis pulled out a 7-6 (2), 7-6 (5) victory over Kaja Juvan of Slovenia in an hour and 58 minutes. Elena-Gabriela Ruse of Romania needed two hours and one minute to overcome China’s Qiang Wang 7-6 (6), 7-6 (12).
Other winners included Caroline Garcia of France, Donna Vekic of Croatia, Harriet Dart of Great Britain and Aleksandra Krunic of Serbia.
Meanwhile, Fourth seed Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic bounced back from a narrow first-set loss to defeat Kaia Kanepi of Estonia 6-7 (5), 6-0, 6-0 in the first round in Berlin.
No. 6 seed Daria Kasatkina of Russia also had to rally, eventually beating Ukraine’s Anhelina Kalinina 5-7, 6-3, 6-1.
Canadian Bianca Andreescu took down Katerina Siniakova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 4-6, 6-4. Andreescu earned an edge by converting seven of 11 break-point opportunities while saving seven of 13.
Aliaksandra Sasnovich of Belarus, Daria Saville of Australia and Xinyu Wang of China also advanced, each winning in three sets.
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