June 23rd, 2009 by Peter Bevan

British number one Andy Murray will face 76th seed Robert Kendrick for his first round match later today on Centre Court at the All England Club.

Andy Murray will be one of the last of the top seeds to play their first round match and would have already seen many of the top seeds cruising into the second round of Wimbledon.

Last year’s finalist Roger Federer, who lost his Wimbledon crown to Rafael Nadal (who had to withdraw this year through injury), beat Yen-Hsun Lu 7-5, 6-3, 6-2, playing in the first competitive match at the new Centre Court featuring the new roof.

Roger Federer will now face Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the second round.

Also through to the second round is world number four Novak Djokovic despite losing the first set, eventually beating Julien Benneteau 6-7, 7-6, 6-2, 6-4. Novak Djokovic faces Simon Greul next.

World number seven Fernando Verdasco beat James Ward 6-1, 6-3, 6-4 and will face Kristof Vliegen in the Wimbledon second round.

Earlier today, the number five seed Juan Martin Del Potro beat Arnaud Clement 6-3, 6-1, 6-2 and is now due to take on former Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt in the second round.

The biggest shock of the tournament so far was the first round loss for world number 17 James Blake.

James Blake reached the final of the Wimbledon warm-up tournament the AEGON Championships before losing to Andy Murray, but despite having plenty of practise playing grass-court tennis, he was beaten 7-5, 6-4, 7-6 by Andreas Seppi.

The 2009 Wimbledon tennis championships is in full swing now and fans will be pleased to hear that also in London in November 2009 will be the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, which is being held at the London O2 Arena.

At the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, the top eight players will compete to become champion in this end-of-season tournament.

Wimbledon tickets and tickets for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals are all still available to compare at tixdaq.com.