Murray faces delays as rain hits Queen's

It promises to be a long week for everyone at Queen's Club in west London and at Edgbaston Priory Club in Birmingham. The opening day's play was washed out yesterday at both the Aegon Championships and the Aegon Classic, the first major tournaments of the grass-court season, and the weather forecast for the rest of the week offers only limited improvement. At this rate both events might have to go into a second week for the second year in succession.

Yesterday's wash-out means that Andy Murray will not play his first match at Queen's before tomorrow. He has a first-round bye, after which he will play France's Nicolas Mahut or Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who are scheduled to play the first match today on court one.

Today's start time on the outside courts at Queen's has been brought forward to 11am, while play is due to begin on centre court at 12.30 with James Ward's first-round match against Kevin Anderson. Ward, the British No 2, reached the semi-finals last year and aims to do the same again. "I've always expected high things of myself," Ward said. "It's not an easy draw, playing against a big server on grass, but you know what you're going to get, you know what you're going to come up against and I'll try and be ready for it."

paul newman