British Davis Cup player Josh Goodall was today left ruing a costly capitulation that led to a 6-3, 7-6 defeat to Gilles Muller in the first round of the Aegon Championships at Queen's Club.

Goodall had hoped to press his claim for a Wimbledon wild card with a positive performance against a player ranked 104 places above him at 95 in the world. After losing the first set Goodall had four set points to take the second set but wasted them all to go down 9-7 in the tie-break as his Luxembourg rival went through.

"It was a missed opportunity," said the British No3. "Maybe I wanted it a bit too much and was trying too hard. I felt I should have won the second set, even though I was not playing unbelievable tennis. I respected Muller, he's in the top 100 in the world. But you don't look at rankings when you're on the court, you're only playing the tennis ball. If I had won that second set, who knows what would have happened?"

Despite the set-back, Goodall (below) insisted he was still worthy of direct entry into Wimbledon. He said: "Generally I've been playing pretty well and I don't think I gave a terrible performance today.

"I'm showing I'm getting chances, so hopefully I'll get the opportunity for Wimbledon. If I don't, I'll just have to go through qualifying."

British No1 Andy Murray starts his Queen's campaign tomorrow against Italy's Andreas Seppi, who beat Robby Ginepri of the United States 5-7, 7-6, 6-3.

Crowd favourite Australian Lleyton Hewitt, aiming for a record fifth title at the tournament, cruised through with a 6-1, 6-0 victory over Eduardo Schwank of Argentina.

The result was hardly a surprise given that 2002 Wimbledon champion Hewitt won six of his 27 career titles on grass while clay-court specialist Schwank has taken just one match on grass since turning professional four years ago.

At the Aegon Classic in Birmingham, former world No1 Maria Sharapova showed no illeffects from her recent shoulder injury as she saw off Canda's Stephanie Dubois 6-4, 6-2. British No6 Naomi Cavaday was also a winner, beating American Julie Ditty 6-2 7-6.