Roddick quickly finds feet on 'happiest day'

Andy Roddick loves his annual visit to west London. "Coming from clay to grass is one of the happiest days of my year," the world No 6 said at Queen's yesterday after winning his opening match at the Aegon Championships. "I don't have to make a lot of adjustments to my game to play on this surface."

Roddick, who has won the title here four times, needed only 55 minutes to beat Belgium's Kristof Vliegen 6-1, 6-4. He served 11 aces and no double faults, did not have a break point against him and played with all the confidence of a man who feels at home on grass.

"I'm playing a lot better now than in years past," Roddick said when asked about his hopes for the grass-court season. "I've been getting deeper into tournaments more consistently and I do love this surface."

The American's Davis Cup colleague, James Blake, whose mother is English, beat Ivan Ljubicic 6-2, 7-6, while Gaël Monfils needed a deciding set tie-break to overcome Andrey Golubev, of Kazakhstan.

Andy Murray, the top seed, who had a first-round bye, plays his second-round match today against the Italian Andreas Seppi. Murray and Lleyton Hewitt were beaten in the second round of the doubles last night, losing 6-4, 6-3 to Lukasz Kubot and Oliver Marach.

In the Aegon Classic at Edgbaston Anne Keothavong, the British No 1, got off to a winning start, beating Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson 6-2, 6-2. She now plays India's Sania Mirza, who beat Tatiana Poutchek 6-1, 6-2.

* Ana Ivanovic has parted company with her coach, Craig Kardon, after only four months. During the grass-court season she will revert to working with the Adidas team of coaches headed by Sven Groeneveld and Darren Cahill. Scott Byrnes will continue to work as the Serb's full-time strength and conditioning coach.