Battling Murray beaten by Kyrgios on return from injury

Andy Murray put up a spirited fight but his competitive return to tennis ended in a three-set defeat to Nick Kyrgios in the first-round of the Fever-Tree Championships.

The former world number one, who last played 342 days ago in Wimbledon 2017, showed all of his usual fight and took the first set before the Australian battled back to win 2-6 7-6 (7/4) 7-5 at Queen’s Club.

Despite the loss, Murray will take great encouragement from his long-awaited return; he still had a visible limp and sometimes looked to struggle with side-to-side movement, but had chances to win and has lost none of his renowned competitive spirit.

It allowed Kyrgios, who also looked to be struggling with injury, a first win over his good friend at the sixth attempt in two hours and 39 minutes.

Novak Djokovic hopes a hiking trip with his wife Jelena can inspire him to get back to the top of the men’s game.

Djokovic reacted to a surprise French Open quarter-final defeat to little-known Marco Cecchinato by suggesting he might not play on grass this summer.

A five-day break put paid to that idea, though, and he opened his campaign with an authoritative 6-2 6-1 win over John Millman.

His chances of winning Queen’s will be tested in the next round, though as he meets second seed Grigor Dimitrov.

The Bulgarian needed three sets to get past Damir Dzumhur 6-3 6-7 (4/7) 6-3.

Milos Raonic, runner-up in 2016, withdrew just hours after beating Yuki Bhambri.

Kyle Edmund beat Ryan Harrison 7-6 (7/4) 6-4 while Adrian Mannarino was victorious over Dan Evans 6-4 0-6 7-5.

Tomas Berdych was beaten 7-5 3-6 6-3 by French qualifier Julien Benneteau, while 2017 champion Feliciano Lopez got his defence under way with a 6-3 6-7 (7/9) 6-3 win over David Goffin.

Leonardo Mayer saw off Kevin Anderson, while Jeremy Chardy beat Tim Smyczek.

Roger Federer won a 19th successive game on grass as he opened his Gerry Weber Cup campaign by beating Aljaz Bedene.

Federer, targeting a 99th singles title in Halle this week, was too good for Bedene, winning 6-3 6-4.

There was a shock in the other side of the draw, though, as home favourite and second seed Alexander Zverev was beaten 6-1 6-4 by Borna Coric.

Fifth seed Lucas Pouille was also dumped out, with Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas winning 6-2 7-6 (7/3).

German wild card Florian Mayer downed Richard Gasquet, who won in Holland last week, while there were also wins for Philipp Kohlschreiber, Karen Khachanov, Andreas Seppi, Benoit Paire and Matthew Ebden.