Querrey, Hewitt advance at Wimbledon warm-up

LONDON (AP) Former champions Sam Querrey and Lleyton Hewitt claimed contrasting victories on Monday to advance to the second round of the Queen's Club grass-court tournament, a traditional warm-up event for Wimbledon.

Querrey, the 2010 winner at Queen's, fired 31 aces and saved all four break points he faced but the American needed three tiebreakers to upset 14th-seeded Jeremy Chardy of France 6-7 (4), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5).

Australian veteran Hewitt went through 6-3, 6-3 against Spain's Daniel Gimeno-Traver as he began his bid for a record fifth title.

''I just felt pretty sharp out there,'' said Hewitt, who has played the most matches - 51 - in the tournament's history and won 41 of them. ''Didn't take me long at all to get straight on the grass and felt comfortable, which is good.''

Australia's Bernard Tomic faced defeat against American Tim Smyczek, dropping his serve to fall behind 5-4 in the third set before sweeping the final three games to win 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

''Very rarely you're going to get out of a match like that,'' said Tomic. ''I'm happy I won... realistically I should have lost that match.''

Among other winners was 13th-seeded Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, who defeated Marsel Ilhan 6-3, 6-4. Australian qualifier James Duckworth recovered from a disastrous opening set to beat Israel's Dudi Sela 0-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4 and set up a second round clash with Tomas Berdych, and Paul-Henri Mathieu of France earned a meeting with Andy Murray by beating Slovenia's Aljaz Bedene 7-6 (2), 6-4.

The tournament has been at the Queen's Club for more than a century.

Andy Murray, who won the title last year before going on to become the first British man to win Wimbledon in 77 years, is seeded three and bidding to join Hewitt, Andy Roddick, John McEnroe and Boris Becker as a four-time winner.

The tournament, led by top-seeded Stan Wawrinka and second-seeded Tomas Berdych, also includes four former champions in Murray, Hewitt, Querrey and Marin Cilic. The top eight seeded players receive a bye into the second round.