Bogdanovic misses out on Wimbledon wild card

Alex Bogdanovic has been overlooked for a wild-card entry into this year’s Wimbledon despite being Britain’s second-highest ranked player.

The news came on the day that Bogdanovic was going some way to lifting the spirits of Britain’s tennis players in the AEGON Championship at Queen’s Club, London.

Rain put an end to play at 7pm yesterday with Bogdanovic 2-1 ahead in the final set against Bulgaria’s former junior Wimbledon champion Grigor Dimitrov.

Bogdanovic was one of three British players on Centre Court at Queen’s, coming on court after Jamie Baker and James Ward had gone out.

Today Andy Murray begins his campaign against Spain’s Ivan Navarro, while American Andy Roddick starts out against Igor Kunitsyn.

While Baker and Ward were given Queen’s Club wild cards, Bogdanovic had to go through qualifying, and it is understood he has rejected the chance to play in the Davis Cup for Great Britain against Turkey at Eastbourne the week after Wimbledon.

Bogdanovic won the first set 6-4 against Dimitrov but could not continue in the same vein – losing the second set 6-3 to his Bulgarian opponent.

But as the rain began to fall, the Englishman managed to edge ahead in the decider.

Bogdanovic, 26, has had eight previous Wimbledon wild cards but lost in the first round on each occasion.

While Bogdanovic looks as though he will have to go through qualifying, 16-year-old Laura Robson was awarded a wild card for the second year in a row.

Robson, who won the girls’ title in 2008, last year lost in three sets to former world number five Daniela Hantuchova in the opening round.

The 16-year-old secured her first career win on the WTA Tour yesterday, when her Swiss opponent Stefanie Voegele, trailing by a set, retired injured at the AEGON Classic in Birmingham.

Robson will be joined as a wild card at Wimbledon by 18-year-old Heather Watson, who is the reigning US Open girls’ champion, plus fellow Britons Katie O’Brien and Melanie South.

British men’s number three Baker, 254th in the ATP rankings, also gets a wild-card entry, as do Russia’s Teimuraz Gabashvili and Andrey Kuznetsov, German Nicolas Kiefer and Japan’s Kei Nishikori.

The organisers still have three wild cards to hand out on the men’s side, and four to the women.

Baker is particularly looking forward to the Davis Cup clash with Turkey.

“The Davis Cup is probably the element of my life I would enjoy the most,” said Baker. “I think being Scottish, I’m very patriotic, so I would carry that on to playing for Great Britain.

“The first time I ever played in the Ukraine I played a dead rubber, and I remember putting my shirt on and I had Great Britain on my back.

“I just felt a definite buzz, a definite excitement to playing. I thought, ’That’s why I’ve done all this work’.”

Baker was sent crashing out of Queen’s 6-1 6-4 by 16th seed Denis Istomin and Robby Ginepri moved easily into the second round after beating Ward 6-3 7-5.