LONDON, 20 Jun: Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s first grass-court match outside Wimbledon proved to be a tricky one.
\nPlaying for the first time at the Queen\u2019s Club Championships, the top-seeded Alcaraz came from a set down Tuesday to win 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3) against lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech \u2014 a No. 83-ranked Frenchman who only found out he was playing following the withdrawal of Arthur Fils a couple of hours before the match.
\n\u201cIt has been a really tough match,\u201d Alcaraz said. \u201cIt was really difficult for me at the beginning to adapt my tennis, my game, to the grass.\u201d
\nAlcaraz faced difficulties in dealing with the tall Rinderknech\u2019s big serve and net coverage in what was the No. 2-ranked Spaniard\u2019s seventh career match on grass, and first away from the All England Club.
\nAlcaraz rallied from going down a break early in the third set and dominated the tiebreaker, which started with an epic point that saw Alcaraz tumble to the ground after racing to the net to hit a cross-court winner.
\nThe fourth point, which put Alcaraz 3-1 ahead, was also memorable because of his outrageous lob on the run that landed on Rinderknech\u2019s baseline and set up another forehand winner. Alcaraz then converted his third match point.
\n\u201cFor me, it\u2019s tough playing here but I enjoy playing on grass and it\u2019s a tournament I really wanted to play,\u201d Alcaraz said.
\nIt was Alcaraz\u2019s first match since losing to Novak Djokovic in the French Open semifinals, after which he went to Spanish party island Ibiza.
\nEarlier at the Wimbledon warmup tournament, second-seeded Holger Rune beat big-serving American Maxime Cressy 7-6 (4), 7-6 (3) for his first grass-court ATP win, after losing three in the first round last year \u2014 including at Wimbledon.
\nFrances Tiafoe won his first match as a top-10 player by defeating Botic van De Zandschulp 6-2 6-4.
\nTiafoe is seeded fourth in London after winning the grass-court Stuttgart Open title on Sunday to climb to a career-high spot of No. 10 in the rankings. Another American, third-seeded Taylor Fritz, plays Bernabe Zapata Miralles later. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON, 20 Jun: Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s first grass-court match outside Wimbledon proved to be a tricky one. Playing for the first time at the Queen\u2019s Club Championships, the top-seeded Alcaraz came from a set down Tuesday to win 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3) against lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech \u2014 a No. 83-ranked Frenchman who only found out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-218797","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218797\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}