Queen’s: Alcaraz moves into final with 250th career win
Carlos Alcaraz beat Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-4 on Saturday evening. He’ll play Jiri Lehecka in the final
Carlos Alcaraz (Adam Davy/AP/SIPA)
Top seed Carlos Alcaraz moved into the final of the Queen’s by winning against Roberto Bautista Agut 6-4, 6-4 at Queen’s Club in London on Saturday.
With this, the 250th singles match win of his tour career, he extends his record since April to 26-1, with just one loss (to Holger Rune in Barcelona) on all surfaces.
He is the third fastest man in the Open Era to reach the 250 milestone, achieving it in 311 matches.
He continues his current career-best winning streak, extending it to 17 matches, following his title wins in Rome and Roland-Garros.
Alcaraz: Everything goes better when I am enjoying it
Reflecting on the 15 aces he served during the match, Alcaraz told journalists afterwards: “I have been really focused on that. Yeah, after Munar’s match [in the round of 16], I felt that I had to change something on the serve. I just put extra focus on the warm-ups just to try to be better, to feel better on the serve.
“As I say, every time that I am enjoying the practices, enjoying my warm-ups, I enjoy stepping on the court, I think everything goes much better. And I think that’s why I put Fran [Rubio, his physio] at the net, just to have fun, have a target on the serve. I think that helps a lot during the matches, just seeing in a certain way the target over there. So help me a lot to have that extra focus on the serve. I think that has been really, really helpful for me.
“So once you put extra focus on something, you’ve got to do better. I’m just pleased about it.”
Alcaraz, ranked No 2, will play Jiri Lehecka in the final, the 27th tour-level final of his career, and the fifth consecutive event in which he has reached the title match.
In the previous rounds of the Queen’s tournament, Carlos Alcaraz defeated Australian lucky loser Adam Walton (6-4, 7-6 (4)), Jaume Munar (6-4, 6-7 (7), 7-5) and French lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech (7-5, 6-4).
Bautista Agut, ranked No 51, beat Portuguese Nuno Borges (6-7 (6), 7-5, 6-4), No 8 seed Jakub Mensik (3-6, 6-3, 7-5) and Dane Holger Rune, the No 4 seed (7-6 (5), 6-7 (4), 6-2) earlier in the tournament.
London ATP 500, other semi-final result (Queen’s Club, grass, EUR 2.522.220):
- Jiri Lehecka beat Jack Draper (2): 6-4, 4-6, 7-5
