Everything's rosy in Greg's garden

The last sentence of Chris Evert's autobiography offers a single piece of advice to tennis professionals: don't forget to stop and smell the roses.

No need to tell Greg Rusedski just now. For him the June air is heavy with delicious scent.

Those unfamiliar with the details of Rusedski's last 12 months might wonder exactly why everything in his personal garden could be considered so lovely. Successive victories over two humble British opponents at Queen's so far this week will not gain him admission to the Hall of Fame, especially given that even those wins looked none too convincing at times.

Moreover, as Rusedski himself cheerfully points out, he is 46th in the entry list rankings and 24th in the Champions' Race.

The roses whose perfume he now detects lie beyond the bare statistics of his current form. He is still relishing the basic pleasure of simply competing without injury. As recently as eight months ago he was mired in a hideous loss of form, accompanied by the uncanny ability to injure himself in practically every other match. Then in November he was introduced to biomechanist Brad Langevad who completely restyled key areas of Rusedski's playing action - serve, return, forehand, backhand, you name it - to eliminate the stresses the 27-year-old was imposing on his body.

It was a huge task. The big prizes have not yet arrived, and will not do so if he gives all opponents as much of a head start as he permitted Jamie Delgado yesterday. The British wildcard broke Rusedski's serve in the first game of the match, and had chances to cause him more difficulty before Rusedski prevailed 6-3, 6-4 in under an hour. But his continuing good health was enough to make the former US Open finalist happy.

"Jamie returned well in the first game," explained Rusedski. "I didn't put enough first serves in and missed two easy volleys. He took advantage, but I managed to get the momentum back. After that I felt pretty comfortable.

"Mainly it's nice just to be able to compete as I have in every match this year. The tennis hasn't always been brilliant, I haven't played spectacularly, but at least I can give a hundred per cent. After visiting doctors every two weeks last year, this year I haven't visited one which is quite pleasant. Things were so bad I considered quitting. You get extremely down on yourself. It was so frustrating. If I hadn't come up with a solution I would have been through with tennis by now because I couldn't put up with playing like that for another year.