MARCOS Baghdatis was a comfortable winner over the British wild-card holder James Ward 6-2, 6-3 in the opening round of the AEGON Championships at the Queens Club in London on Monday evening.
“I felt pretty good. It was a weird match not a lot of rhythm. But I was feeling good, serving quite okay, and returning okay. I did what I have to do to win the match, so that was enough,” said Baghdatis after the match.
The Cypriot improved to a 12-9 record this season and is currently ranked 81st in the South African Airways 2009 ATP Rankings with 850 points. The victory over Ward was his first since reaching the second round at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 Miami in March.
“Getting the job done is very important and winning the match is very important for me, especially now. I did not win a match since Miami, so that is a long time. So I am pretty happy I won today, getting into the tournament slowly, slowly,” added Baghdatis.
His opponent in the second round this afternoon is Mikhail Youzhny of Russia who beat Oscar Hernandez of Spain 6-4, 6-2 in his first round encounter. Baghdatis and Youzhny faced each other three times so far on the tour and the Cypriot holds a 2-1 winning head-to-head record. Youzhny won in the opening round of Wimbledon in 2005, while Baghdatis came out victorious in quarterfinals of the both 2007 and 2008 editions of Open 13 in Marseille.
Baghdatis also commented on his work through injuries and on his targets for the next six months: “When I had problems with my wrist it was not so difficult as I could work out a bit on my legs and other parts of my body, but with the back injury you just cannot do anything so it was much tougher then.”
“I need time to get my fitness back. It will take a while, but I am really happy that I am back on the court playing some matches, loosing or winning, I am just back on the court working hard and enjoying my time.”
“It hurts when I see myself every week between 80 to 100 at the rankings, but I know that I need patience, I need to believe in yourself and I have people around me who believe in me so I hope that we will work together in the right way and get back to the top. I really have no targets for the next period. Just avoiding injuries, enjoy tennis, and get my personality back on the court. Through injuries I lost it a bit of my on-court personality, but if I manage to retrieve that I could go anywhere,” concluded Baghdatis.
