Alcaraz reappears at Queen’s

Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz suffered in his debut on grass, but managed to come back and defeat France’s Arthur Rinderknech 4-6, 7-5, 7-6 (3) to start his career at Queen’s with a victory.

Murcian, who made his debut at the London club after three days of training, needed a set and a half to acclimatize to the surface and decipher the game of his rival, the tall and aggressive Rinderknech, who came out more at the net. over 70 times and never stopped putting Alcaraz in trouble.

The second in the world imagined a completely different match, because in his head the opponent was supposed to be the teenager Arthur Fils, who left the tournament two hours before the start of the match and allowed Rinderknech to enter as lucky loser.

The change of opponent was not insignificant, as it meant the arrival on the scene of Rinderknech, a server with more caches, who had the misfortune of running into Grigor Dimitrov, who won on these tracks in 2014, in the last round of the qualifiers.

Alcaraz already knew what it was like to beat the Frenchman, in a completely different context—US Open 2021—and even then it was a puzzle and took him a set. Now the situation was very different, with the vaunted Alcaraz on the track and as a super favorite against Rinderknech who had no support or on his bench, completely abandoned.

But it was not a formality for Alcaraz, it was a fight against the surface and against the direct play of his rival. After six games of scoring and understanding that it wasn’t going to be a walk through the court, Alcaraz squandered three break points and the skid began. In the eighth game, Murcian made four unforced errors in a row and gave away his serve.

The Frenchman, unaccustomed to heroics, trembled, having the set in front of him, and failed to close, returning the favor to Alcaraz who, after hooking three won returns to break his opponent’s serve, came back and delivered yours.

The tour on the grass started with fear, now it remains to be determined whether it is also drama. That’s what this surface has; two misses and the set is lost. The room for maneuver was still large, as Alcaraz’s tennis was far from his usual pace, but either the Frenchman opened windows with his serve or the shipwreck would be irreparable.

That’s how the fence tightened. Shot after shot, Alcaraz ran out of opportunities to make a ‘break’. Until at 5-4 in favor of the French, he was three points away from winning the game. The maximum tension that Alcaraz released with a serve that tripped the Frenchman and fell to the ground.

He was not damaged, but he lost his concentration. He lost the next three games and the match found a balance in which Alcaraz, with his head, had a chance to win. The enthusiasm of the French weakened and it was seen that even he was losing.

He was on the verge of a complete exit, conceding 15-40 as soon as the final set began, but the serve caught him by the chest and brought him back into the game. It was a safe jump from the Frenchman, who broke Alcaraz’s serve for the second time in the match and set off the alarms again. He no longer needed ‘breaks’, with four serves he would have achieved the first victory against the ‘top 10’ in his career. But it was a lot of pressure and Alcaraz appeared again.

From 0-2 it went to 2-2 and the match was completely even. Rinderknech saved two break points, Alcaraz 15-30… Everything was heading towards a ‘tie break’, the most logical outcome.

And here the common sense of Alcaraz prevails. Murcian hit the equalizer in the first point, with a spectacular exchange that he solved by sliding on the ground and never lost the advantage. In just over two and a half hours, he sealed his fifth victory on this surface, his first outside of Wimbledon.

With this victory, Alcaraz, who will face Jiri Leheck in the second round, maintains his hope of reaching number one at Wimbledon. He will need four more victories to take the scepter from Djokovic.