LONDON, June 16, 2019 (Press Release)
British players will face the leading seeds at The Queen’s Club after the singles and doubles draws were made on Saturday.
In his first match back after undergoing hip surgery earlier this year, Andy Murray and his doubles partner Feliciano Lopez drew top-seeded Colombian duo Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the Fever-Tree Championships, an LTA summer event.
British No.1 Kyle Edmund will face tournament top seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas in singles. The 2019 Australian Open semi-finalist will be making his debut at The Queen’s Club, and will be the top seed at an ATP 500 event for the first time in his career.
In the bottom half of the draw, last year’s Wimbledon finalist Kevin Anderson is returning to action at The Queen’s Club, having not played a match since the Miami Open in March because of injury. He will open his tournament against British No.2 Cam Norrie.
Elsewhere, British player Jay Clarke faces Lucas Pouille in his first match, whilst recent Surbiton Trophy champion Dan Evans drew Stan Wawrinka in the opening round. Switzerland’s three-time Grand Slam champion owns a 2-0 head-to-head record over Evans, including a five-set thriller in the third round of the 2016 US Open and a three-setter in Indian Wells earlier this year.
The 2014 champion Grigor Dimitrov meets Stuttgart finalist Felix Auger-Aliassime, and 2009 US Open Champion Juan Martin del Potro takes on Next Gen star Denis Shapovalov. Defending champion Marin Cilic will begin his title defence against Cristian Garin, who has already won two ATP titles in 2019.
Main draw action will begin on Monday at The Queen’s Club, but the qualifying draw got underway on Saturday. Court 1 was headlined by two British wild cards – Jack Draper and James Ward.
Draper, who reached the Boys’ Singles Final at Wimbledon last year, lost a rollercoaster match to Kazakh Alexander Bublik. After dropping the first set 6-2, Draper broke in consecutive games at the end of the second set to push the match to a decider. Despite falling behind by a double break early in the third set, Draper got the match back on serve at 3-4 before eventually losing 6-2, 1-6, 6-3.
Up next, James Ward moved to within one match of the main draw with a solid 6-1, 6-4 victory against Prajnesh Gunneswaran. Ward now faces Ivo Karlovic.
Sunday’s final round of qualifying is due to start at 11 am, with free entry for 800 people at a time. The gates at The Queen’s Club will open at 10:30 am.
The Fever-Tree Championships will be broadcast live throughout by the BBC and Prime Video in the UK.
Limited main draw tickets remain – http://po.st/QueensTickets2019
