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Andy Murray believes Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal remain the favourites for Wimbledon despite neither being likely to play any competitive matches on grass before the tournament begins.
The British No1 faces Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain in the second match on centre court at the AEGON Championships today after powering his way past Andreas Seppi in his first outing at Queen's Club.
While Nadal is struggling to recover from a long-standing knee problem and Federer chose to withdraw from his usual pre-SW19 warm-up event in Halle, world No3 Murray is enjoying uninterrupted preparation following a fine clay-court campaign.
But the 22-year-old from Scotland does not believe it will not give him any advantage over his two main rivals when the third grand slam of the year gets under way on Monday week. "It's such a quick turnaround from the clay-court season regardless of whether you play a tournament or not," he said.
"Roger didn't play last year in Halle and still nearly won the tournament, only losing in the final.
"For me, ideally I'd like to play a few matches on grass before Wimbledon. But I don't think a lot has changed. Roger and Rafa going into the tournament were going to be the favourites. Rafa I think has a slight edge in their head to head matches lately.
"Mentally he's won two very long, tough matches the last couple of times they have played in the slams. But both of them are going to be incredibly difficult to beat.
"Roger has made so many grand slam finals and semi-finals in the last few years. I always expect him to play well at Wimbledon.
"I'd be surprised if Rafa didn't play. He won at Queen's last year after he won the French, so he wouldn't have missed this event if he was 100 per cent ready physically or mentally. He'll come into Wimbledon with not as much match practice but with the same belief that he can win."
World No52 and clay-court specialist Garcia-Lopez (right), who beat Gilles Muller yesterday, went into the match admitting he is yet to find his feet on grass.
"In Spain, we don't have any grass courts, only artificial, so I was practising the last week there and it was okay," said the Spaniard, who won his first ATP title in Kitzbuehel last month.
"But it's a little bit different when you come here and the ball keeps low."
Naomi Cavaday will take on Stefanie Voegele from Switzerland the third round of the AEGON Classic in Birmingham today.
The 20-year-old from Kent achieved the best result of her career so far to put out the vastly-experienced Tamarine Tanasugarn, a player 250 places higher in the world rankings in her last match.
