Carlos Alcaraz avoided another scare at the Queen’s Club ATP 500 event as the top-seeded Spaniard dispatched France’s Arthur Rinderknech with little fuss 7-5, 6-4 to reach the semi-finals on Friday.
Wimbledon champion Alcaraz toiled for three hours in stifling heat on Thursday to edge past fellow Spaniard Jaume Munar in a titanic scrap and afterwards admitted he did not know how he was still standing.
It was far more straightforward against unseeded Rinderknech, the player he also beat in his opening match two years ago when he went on to win the title at the prestigious Wimbledon warm-up event in west London.
Photo: AP
The 22-year-old converted each of his two break points as he extended his sequence of match wins to a career-long 16.
“I could be better [physically]. Honestly I was thinking I was going to feel much worse than I did today,” five-time Grand Slam champion Alcaraz said on court. “I’m glad it was only one hour 20 minutes today.”
Britain’s Jack Draper continued his Wimbledon build-up as he reached the semi-finals at Queen’s for the first time with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 defeat of American Brandon Nakashima.
Draper not only kept himself on track for the prestigious ATP 500 title, but also secured the win that guarantees a top-four seeding at Wimbledon where he would be the big home hope.
The 23-year-old was fully tested by world number 32 Nakashima and his powerful game began to misfire as he lost the second set on a baking hot day on Andy Murray Arena.
Draper settled back into the groove in the deciding set and broke serve in the seventh game with one of his trademark forehand pile drivers. The left-hander had to save a break point when serving for the match at 5-4 but recovered to seal victory and set up a clash with Czech Jiri Lehecka who had earlier beaten Britain’s Jacob Fearnley 7-5, 6-2.
“It means the world to me to reach the semi-finals here,” Draper said, bidding to become the first British player to win the title at the prestigious west London club since Murray won for a record fifth time in 2016. “I think there’s going to be an even bigger buzz at the weekend and that will give me more energy to keep progressing.”
While being ranked fourth means Draper would avoid either defending champion Alcaraz or world number one Jannik Sinner until the semi-finals at Wimbledon, Draper shrugged off the significance of that when asked about it.
“I kept getting asked about that by the journalists but I’ve got to reach the semi-finals first,” he said. “But it is an incredible position. I was at Wimbledon last year ranked 40 so to go there as fourth seed is a testament to all the hard work my team has done, so very proud of that.”
Alcaraz was to face Spanish veteran Roberto Bautista Agut in the semi-final after press time last night. Agut saw off Danish contender Holger Rune 7-6, 6-7, 6-2 in the quarter-final yesterday.
‘DEVASTATED’: Argentina’s win was a reversal of their 28-24 defeat last week, with Australian forward Fraser McReight adding that ‘we did the same thing last week’ Argentina flyhalf Santiago Carreras punished an undisciplined Australia with 23 points off the tee as the Pumas held on grimly for a 28-26 win in Sydney yesterday to breathe new life into their Rugby Championship campaign. A try-fest beckoned in afternoon sunshine at Sydney Football Stadium, but Argentina needed only one through captain Julian Montoya, with Carreras doing the damage with seven penalties and a conversion in front of a sell-out crowd. A week after letting a 14-point lead slip in a 28-24 defeat to Australia in Townsville, Argentina saw most of a 21-point advantage erased in the final quarter as the
Captain Vijay Kumar led the way yesterday as the Hsinchu Titans claimed the Taiwan Premier League title at the Yingfeng Cricket Ground in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山), beating PCCT by 27 runs. The weather was a topic again, but not the rain that played a role in previous matches in the often-delayed tournament. Kumar, who made 80 not out from 63 deliveries, and teammate Vishwajit Kumar (58 from 43) rescued the Titans from a precarious state at the end of the power play in the T20 match. The visitors were put in to bat and struggled to 26-3 as PCCT
China’s state-run People’s Daily newspaper on Monday published an essay about Chinese basketball it said was written by LeBron James, but a representative for the NBA star said on Thursday that the article was based on a series of interviews. The paper, better known as the mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, had said James authored the essay, “Basketball is a Bridge that Connects Us,” a tribute to Chinese players and fans of the sport written in the first person. “LeBron James Pens an Article in the People’s Daily,” read a post published on the newspaper’s official WeChat account. On Thursday, a representative
San Francisco Giants pitcher Teng Kai-wei impressed against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday despite an 8-1 loss in the opener of the team’s nine-game road trip. Teng, the only Taiwanese pitcher active in MLB, struck out five while allowing two hits and one walk over four innings at Chase Field to finish with a no decision, as the teams were tied 1-1 when he finished his outing. He surrendered the lone run of his outing in the bottom of the first, which began with a walk, a hit-by-pitch and two strikeouts. Diamondbacks leadoff hitter Geraldo Perdomo advanced to third on
RSS