Henman, who lost at Queen’s to Pete Sampras in 1999 and to current world number one Lleyton Hewitt 12 months ago, is thankful to be back on his favourite grass surface after his early exit from the French Open.

‘‘Unfortunately, I only get to play a couple of tournaments on grass so it’s important that I make the most of them,’’ he said.

‘‘I gave the clay-court season my all but now I need to focus all of my attention on having a very successful next four weeks.’’

The top-seeded Hewitt is out to complete a hat-trick of Stella triumphs, having beaten Sampras in the final in 2000.

Another former champion, Mark Philippoussis, will be in action on the opening day today when he takes on British number three Martin Lee for the right to meet sixth seed Greg Rusedski.

British number two Rusedski will be looking for some serious grass-court practice, having missed the French Open due to a neck injury.

The British contingent is increased by the presence of Alex Bogdanovic, Jamie Delgado and Arvind Parmar, who all received wild cards.

Eighteen-year-old Bogdanovic, ranked 521 in the world, takes part in the main draw of an ATP event for the first time in his career when he meets qualifier Gilles Elseneer on court two.

Bogdanovic, who moved to Britain from Belgrade when he was eight, made his mark last year when he beat Lee to reach the final of the British National Championships.

Parmar, who will be first on centre court today when he takes on Marc Rosset, will be hoping to reproduce his Stella form of two years ago when he defeated 1998 champion Scott Draper in the first round and then took a set off Pete Sampras.