Queens Tennis 2014 Qualifier and Practises from Sunday 8th June

Finally my first live tennis of 2014 came at the always lovely and intimate setting of Queens Club London, which I attended from Sunday of Qualies through to Thursday (except Monday). This is the story of the first day through photos (with limited comments due to lack of note making sorry).

I arrived at about 10:30am to sunshine and literally the first player I saw was Paulo Mathieu with his girlfriend (which I consider ironic since a friend and I nickname him 'Sunshine'). Practises didn't start up properly until 11am, when combinations included Mathieu/Melzer, Skupski brothers, Dimitrov/Wawrinka, Murray/Thiem, Tsonga/Mahut, Berdych/Stepanek etc.

Wawrinka/Dimitrov practising together. Grigor was out for about 1hr 15 but Stan stayed out for 2 hours working hard. Yes I did find myself watching here for two hours hence the amount of pictures (but was also following Murray/Thiem on the neighbouring court plus practises behind like Berdych/Stepanek). A lot of great tennis players per small radius at Queens and of course free to watch first weekend resulting in great crowds just watching training.

Stan 'I still call him Stanislas' Wawrinka

A little rendevous with Tsonga

Grigor Dimitrov

I was in 1-handed BH paradise (with Thiem also practising just behind)

Andy Murray and Dominic Thiem practise

Paulo Mathieu and Jurgen Melzer

Britain's Skupski brothers preparing for Doubles

Lleyton Hewitt

Alexandr Dolgopolov

Nicolas Mahut

Sam Querrey

Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek

Loving the 'TB' shirt.. it's on the front and back. Good ole' Tomas setting the style as normal. Not to be outdone, Radek also had a unique shirt. Czech 'stylee' practise. Some stylish tennis shots on show too.

Was a great atmosphere at the Brands and McGee match on Court 1 with the majority of the crowd heartily cheering on the Irish lad. Brands proved just too solid in the end though with McGee ending the match with a disappointing 2 Double Faults to lose 7-5 in the 3rd. Onwards to Wimbledon Qualifiers for him.

James McGee

Daniel Brands

I then watched the match between Reynolds and Dustov (which Reynolds edged) over on Court 2 before returning to the practise courts, whereby I witnessed quite a few players out for their second training of the day. Definitely a lot of players needing to get back into the grass rhythm and what better place to prepare and hone those skills than on a glorious Sunday afternoon at Queens.

Bobby Reynolds

Farrukh Dustov

Back at the practise courts...

Somdev Devvarman

Alex Peya and Bruno Soares

Vasek Pospisil

Colin Fleming and Raven Klassen

Polish doubles pair Frystenberg/Matkowski (though not playing together this week)

Stan Wawrinka out for his second practise session of the day, this time with Jeremy Chardy.

So ended my first day. Hope you enjoyed this little taster into the heart and soul of Queens. Come back to read more from the Main Draw action.