NO-ONE who played in the AEGON Ilkley Trophy this year matched the achievements of 2015 men's singles champion Denis Kudla (USA) and Olga Govortsova (Belarus) in reaching the last 16 of the singles at Wimbledon last year.

But Yorkshire's biggest tennis tournament still proved to be a decent warm-up event, not only for the All-England Club itself but also for the Wimbledon qualifying tournament that preceded it at Roehampton.

Nine men and and three women used the Stourton Road venue as a launchpad for getting through the rigours of the Bank of England Sports Club, while once they were at SW19, three men and two women progressed to round two at Wimbledon, including both Ilkley champions.

ATP Challenger Tour aceYen-Hsun Lu, who looked the class act at Ilkley, easily took care of Russian Alexander Kudryavtsev in the first round 6-4, 6-1, 6-4 before being even more comfortably dismantled by second seed Andy Murray on Centre Court.

The 32-year-old from Chinese Taipei showed his quality early on against the former Wimbledon champion, establishing a 3-1 lead, before Murray put the world No 70 in his place, winning 6-3, 6-2, 6-1 and making his unseeded opponent look quite awkward at times.

Evgeniya Rodina, who won the women's singles at Ilkley to earn herself a wild card into the main draw at Wimbledon, defeated Ukraine's Lesia Tsurenko 6-3, 7-5 before losing 6-4, 6-0 to 24th seed Barbara Zahlavova Strycova from the Czech Republic.

Others to make progress on the Wimbledon grass were American Dennis Novikov, who defeated fellow Ilkley entrant Luke Saville (Australia) 4-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-4 in the first round before losing in four sets to 31st seed Joao Sousa (Portugal), and Australian Matthew Barton.

He saw off France's Albano Olivetti in another all-Ilkley match up 6-7 (7-9), 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 14-12 in 4hr 2min, only to go out in three tie-break sets to 18th seed John Isner (USA).

Tall Chinese player Ying-Ying Duan was the other Ilkley entrant to progress in singles, defeating Kristyna Pliskova (Czech Republic) 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 and bowing out 6-3, 7-5 to sixth seed Roberta Vinci (Italy).