Schroders Battle Of The Brits: live tennis updates from day one with Andy Murray among those in action
Click Here to watch Schroders Battle of the Brits Live
Live coverage of all day, including Andy Murray who will feature at around 5pm
The Telegraph Media Group is donating £25 to NHS Charities Together for every ace hit during tournament
New conventions in place to ensure social distancing and safety of players
Dan hits out at Novak Djokovic
The big tennis news of the day is that Novak Djokovic has tested positive for Covid-19.
Here’s what Dan Evans had to say about the World No.1’s controversial Adria Tour event. The Briton accused the Wimbledon champion of setting a poor example.
Next up is the British No.1 verses the British No.4
We now turn our attention to Dan Evans against Jay Clarke.
Here are a few facts about the British pair.
Dan Evans – the BritishNo.1 is 28th in the world rankings at the moment. He models his game on Roger Federer (not a bad player to try and copy…). He’s an unpredictable player, willing to charge the net in a way rarely seen these days.
Jay Clarke – the 21-year-old from Derby is 167th in the world rankings, he’s won six Futures titles. He apparently spent a lot of the lockdown doing a lot of the washing up – for that reason alone we feel you should support the underdog.
4:54PM
It’s hot work out there…
As if to illustrate how hot and humid it is on court, here’s Edmund with a lot of ice…
Edmund happy with victory and performance
On the win…
“Overall it was a good performance. I had to work hard for that it was a good contest. The second set was a real battle.”
On working on his backhand…
“I always try and improve the backhand and these past few weeks I have been working on it becoming more of a winner rather than keeping the ball in play. It’s nice to see it pay off.”
4:49PM
EDMUND WINS 6-1, 6-4
There was inevitably going to be some rust out there and while there are definitely aspects to work – his serve was far from perfect – on Edmund on the whole was impressive. He was aggressive from the start and his forehand looks as big a weapon, if not bigger, was it was before the lockdown. He should be happy with that.
4:45PM
Edmund 6-1, 5-4 Ward *
Both players are struggling with their serve at the moment, possibly down to rust and the hot and humid conditions. Ward is down 0-30 when Edmund is stuck behind the baseline, but rather than capitalise he slices a backhand into the net to give his opponent three break points. Another backhand into the net means Edmund will serve for the match.
4:40PM
Edmund* 6-1, 4-4 Ward
I didn’t expect that. Ward breaks back after a few chances to break Edmund’s serve. Data shows that Ward has been the fastest on the court today having been made to work hard by the world No.44. Just when you expect Edmund to dominate…
It’s the last week in June, the sun is out, you’re feeling a bit partial to some strawberries and you’re about to try and recall all the rules of tennis having not watched anything of the racquet sport for 50 weeks – yes it’s time for south west London to host Andy Murray and Co….
This time, however, of the game’s global stars it’s just Murray turning up, it’s taking place indoors on hard courts rather than outdoors on grass and it’s to Roehampton and not SW19 where we head for all the action.
Like so much top-class sport Wimbledon has been dealt an ace by the Covid-19 pandemic and is not serving up any action for the first time since 1945. In its place is the Schroders Battle Of The Brits, the brainchild of Jamie Murray and Martina Navratilova’s agent Mary Greenham who hope to raise upwards of £100,000 for NHS Charities Together in the process.
As the title suggests the tournament is exclusively for Britons with the top eight men battling it out for bragging rights and title of best British male player.
As with much of daily life these past three months the normal rules of the game will not apply at the National Tennis Centre in SW15 so here is the lowdown on what to expect and look forward to over the next six days.
The men’s singles features eight players split into two groups of four. They play the other three group rivals once with the top two from each group – the Tim Henman Group and Greg Rusedski Group (Fred Perry was clearly deemed too old school despite the eight Grand Slams…) – going through to the semi-finals.
It’s the same format with the doubles, but there are two groups of three rather than four.
Matches will be two sets with a tie-break and as if that wasn’t enough of a change to the expected format and conventions, for social distancing purposes, there will be no ball boys or girls or even line judges.
Stay with us throughout the day for all the action from day one of the Rumble In Roehampton (that’s what I’m calling it and am going to stick with it
