AEGON must have a monopoly on all UK grass court tournaments which aren’t Wimbledon.  Sam Querrey just won Queen’s, also known as the AEGON Championships.  This week, there’s another small men’s tournament held in Eastbourne called the AEGON International.

Most players like to take the week before Wimbledon off to fine-tune their game.  You won’t see any of the top 10 playing at Eastbourne.  Indeed, the top seeds are primarily clay courters.

The top seed is Nicolas Almagro who had a successful French.  Feliciano Lopez, who lost in the semis of Queen’s, is the 2nd seed.  Gilles Simon who has been injured a while returns back as the 3rd seed (he needed a wildcard to get in the tournament, presumably since he applied past the deadline).  Fellow Frenchman, Julien Benneteau, is the 4th seed.  Two more clay courters, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Horacio Zeballos, and seeded 5th and 6th.  At 7th is the hard hitting Ukrainian, Alex Dolgopolov.  Michael Llodra, who had a good showing at Queen’s, is 8th.

This event also marks the return of James Blake who has been sidelined with knee injury.  Blake, like Mardy Fish, is a solid grass court player.

In case you’re curious, that’s Colin Fleming who was trying to qualify for this tournament (it’s very hard to find pictures of a smaller event tournament).