Ward eases into second qualifying round

The British number two, seeded 15 for the qualifying tournament and hoping to join Andy Murray as Britain's representatives in the tournament proper, encountered few problems on his way to a 6-2 6-2 victory in just over an hour on court.

Ward fired down eight aces, hit another eight winners and won 71 per cent of his first service points to set up a second-round encounter with Vincent Millot of France.

There was disappointment however for both Daniel Evans and Daniel Smethurst.

Evans, Britain's number three player behind Ward and Murray, took the first set and was close to securing victory against Jimmy Wang as the second went to a tie-break, but he eventually fell 4-6 7-6(9) 6-2.

And Smethurst was comprehensively beaten by Konstantin Kravchuk of Russia 6-1 6-2.