Liverpool-Live

The tournament, in the lush Calderstones Park setting, offers a more relaxed warm up to Wimbledon and is favoured by some players over the more intense European grass tournaments for their SW19 preparation.

First up on the centre court was local schoolboy Harry Meehan, already 6'5" tall, the big serving 16 year old drew in a partisan crowd for his match against former world number five Chilean Fernando Gonzales. The big serving youngster from Allerton had his chances in the match but was edged out 7-5, 7-6. Gonzales, back on grass for the first time in two years, was full of praise for the youngster. Meehan would also go down in straight sets 6-4,6-4 to American Jean-Michael Gambill later in the day.

Former women's world number 1 and Wimbledon champion Hingis was up next against last year's winner Canadian Eugenie Bouchard in an intriguing match up. The tennis was a bright as the girl's outfits but it was the class of Hingis that showed through winning in straight sets 7-5,6-1.

The match of the day without a doubt was the battle between good friends Krajicek and crowd favourite Greg Ruzedski. The legends match entertained in the afternoon sun with both players playing up to the crowd. There were laughs a plenty with Ruzedski even asking a ball boy to play a point for him. It was the Dutchman who won through though 7-5,3-6,10-2 in a championship tie break.

There was no doubt as to the surprise result of the opening day with another local player Neal Skupski destroying world number 45 Andrey Golubev 6-4,6-3 on the centre court.

Friday sees the ATP & WTA semi-finals along with a Ruzedski/Krajicek rematch and the battle of the Martina's with Hingis up against her namesake Martina Navratilova.

Tickets are still available for tomorrow and the weekend of finals and doubles matches.

Images and words: Rich Denton