Tennis: British No.2 Bogdanovic is denied 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 tennis 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.

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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.

Bogdanovic won the first set 6-4 against Dimitrov but lost the second 6-3. But as the rain began to fall, the Englishman managed to edge ahead in the decider.

The 26-year-old has had eight previous Wimbledon wild cards but lost in the first round on each occasion.

Meanwhile, Laura Robson was awarded a wild card for the second year in a row.

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 No.3 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.