Britain's Jamie Delgado secured his biggest pay-day of the year yesterday - and then spoke of his terror at being caught up in the recent uprising in Uzbekistan.

Delgado defeated France's Gael Monfils in the first round of the Stella Artois Championship to join Greg Rusedski and Andrew Murray in the second round.

British number one Tim Henman, given a first-round bye as third seed, then advanced to the third round with a hard-fought victory over American Robby Ginepri in three sets.

Delgado is now guaranteed at least £3,910 in prize money, just £300 less than he has earnt during the whole of the season put together.

The British number five has been playing mainly on the Challenger circuit this season and relived the moment he and several other British players needed an armed escort away from a low-key tournament in Andijan last month.

Up to 200 people were reported to have been killed and many others injured after security forces fired into crowds protesting against the authoritarian regime of President Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan.

''I heard gunshots on the Thursday night and when we got to the tennis club on Friday it was in a bit of a panic,'' said the world number 205. ''It was pretty scary at times.

''We slept on sofas at the club on Friday night until the British Embassy came and picked us up the next morning and drove us to Tashkent.

''On Friday night I was pretty nervous, people were shooting aimlessly from what we understood. We were guarded but I would have liked more.

''It's a rough place as it is but when that starts happening, it's like, 'What am I doing here?'

''I'd love to do well in tennis but I don't want to sacrifice my life, literally, to do so.''

Delgado is only playing at Queen's Club thanks to a wild card secured on the toss of a coin.

''There were four of us to play off for a wild card because the Lawn Tennis Association could not decide who to give it to,'' explained Delgado.

''I won my first match and was supposed to play Arvind Parmar in the final but it rained so we ended up tossing a coin for it and I won.''

Monfils ended last year as the world's number one junior, winning three of the four Grand Slam titles, including beating Britain's Miles Kasiri in the final at Wimbledon.

But Delgado was in command from the outset on court one and eased to a 6-2 6-4 victory to book a last 32 clash with another French teenager, Richard Gasquet.

Henman had beaten Ginepri 6-1 6-2 at Queen's in 2002 but was far from his best as he struggled to a 7-6 4-6 6-1 victory.

The 30-year-old raced into a 4-2 lead in the opening set but was quickly broken back and found himself in deep trouble in the tie-break.

Ginepri forged a 5-3 lead but then missed a trio of easy forehands to let the number three seed off the hook, Henman taking the last four points in a row.

Henman lost his opening match here to Karol Beck 12 months ago and there were ominous signs a repeat could be on the cards.

He squandered two break points early in the second set - the first with an uncharacteristically woeful overhead into the net - and Ginepri took full advantage.

An errant Henman volley gave the world number 73 the vital break and he served out with his second ace of the match to force a nervy decider.

Henman finally wrestled control of the match in the decider however, twice breaking Ginepri's serve to storm into a 5-0 lead before serving out to seal victory in the seventh game.

''There are plenty of things to work on,'' he admitted. ''I was trying to be aggressive and in the third set I started to come in a bit more and I felt like it was a pretty good match all round.''

Top seed and three-time champion Lleyton Hewitt was stretched to the limit before advancing to the third round with victory over Xavier Malisse.

Playing his first singles match since March following injury, Hewitt lost the first set in a tie-break but battled back to win 6-7 7-5 7-5 in two hours 37 minutes.

The Australian is the top seed at Queen's and is scheduled to meet Henman in the semi-finals, a player he has beaten in all eight of their previous meetings, including two finals here.

''It's hard to emulate match conditions in practice no matter how hard you try,'' said Hewitt.

''I knew it was going to be a tough match going into it. Xavier's a lot better player than his ranking suggests when his mind's on the job.

''Today is a huge bonus. I played for two and a half hours, played a lot of tight points out there in big situations and came through and get another match.

''Wimbledon's different, regardless of how well I go here.

"It will be a bonus if I can get some matches under my belt but if I bombed out I would still think I had a pretty good chance of getting through to the second week of Wimbledon, and then anything can happen.''

* Maria Sharapova picked up in ominous fashion from where she left off at Wimbledon with an impressive return to grass.

The Wimbledon champion made a confident start to the defence of her DFS Classic title in Birmingham, beating the unseeded Anne Kremer 6-3 6-0 in her first singles match on grass since her glorious triumph at the All England Club last July.

''It's always nice coming back to where you've had really good memories,'' said the world number two.

It took Sharapova just 53 minutes to see off the 94th-ranked Kremer.