Defending champ Alcaraz recovers from mid-match dip to win at Queen's Club

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/carlos-alcaraz/a0e2/overview'Carlos Alcaraz/a made a winning return at the cinch Championships on Tuesday following his a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/roland-garros/520/overview'Roland Garros/a triumph earlier this month./p

pThe Spaniard, who lifted his third major title on the Parisian clay, was not at his best in his first grass-court match of 2024, but he found a way to move past a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/francisco-cerundolo/c0au/overview'Francisco Cerundolo/a 6-1, 7-5 and reach the second round at the Queen's Club./p

p"The first match in any tournament is never easy but even more difficult here on grass, starting the grass season," Alcaraz said. "You want to do a good result and have to deal with a lot of expectations that you put on yourself. I am really happy with the match and it was a good test, playing with Francisco. It was close in the second set. It is good to have tough situations. Having to deal with nerves."/p

blockquote class="twitter-tweet"p lang="en" dir="ltr"Champion instincts ????brbrBack in London a href="https://twitter.com/carlosalcaraz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@carlosalcaraz/a saves three set points to edge Cerundolo 6-1, 7-5a href="https://twitter.com/QueensTennis?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"@QueensTennis/a | a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/cinchChampionships?src=hashamp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"#cinchChampionships/a a href="https://t.co/JBNsTRTW86"pic.twitter.com/JBNsTRTW86/a/pmdash; ATP Tour (@atptour) a href="https://twitter.com/atptour/status/1803087553517482118?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw"June 18, 2024/a/blockquote script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"/script

pAlcaraz is the defending champion at the ATP 500 event, having dropped just one set en route to the title last season. The 21-year-old backed that up by winning a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a. The top seed started quickly in his first Lexus ATP Head2Head meeting with Cerundolo, committing just one unforced error in the first set to move ahead. However, his level dropped at the start of the second set, with the Spaniard trailing 2-5./p

pFrom there, Alcaraz battled back impressively, saving three set points on serve at 4-5 before sealing victory to extend his winning streak on the surface to 13 matches./p

pThe No. 2 player in the PIF ATP Rankings will next play Stuttgart champion a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jack-draper/d0co/overview'Jack Draper/a or Argentine a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/mariano-navone/n0bs/overview'Mariano Navone/a following his 82-minute win./p

p/p

div class="riddle2-wrapper" data-rid-id="9FpC4D9w" data-auto-scroll="true" data-is-fixed-height-enabled="false" data-bg="#fff" data-fg="#00205b" style="margin:0 auto; max-width:100%; width:640px;" script src="https://www.riddle.com/embed/build-embedjs/embedV2.js"/scriptiframe src="https://www.riddle.com/embed/a/9FpC4D9w?lazyImages=falsestaticHeight=false" allow="autoplay" referrerpolicy="strict-origin"section data-block="SingleChoice"h3Who has won the most singles titles at the cinch Championships, held at Queen#039;s Club, with five?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/john-mcenroe/m047/overview'John McEnroe/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lleyton-hewitt/h432/overview'Lleyton Hewitt/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3Who has won the most titles at the a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/halle/500/overview'Terra Wortmann Open/a, held in Halle, with 10?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/michael-stich/s351/overview'Michael Stich/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roger-federer/f324/overview'Roger Federer/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/tommy-haas/h355/overview'Tommy Haas/a/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/roger-federer/f324/overview'Roger Federer/a has won the most grass-court titles on record. How many ???? did he lift on the surface?/h3ulli14/lili19/lili22/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3Which active players have won the most grass-court titles with eight each?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/rafael-nadal/n409/overview'Rafael Nadal/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/rafael-nadal/n409/overview'Rafael Nadal/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/li/ul/sectionsection data-block="SingleChoice"h3Which active player has the highest winning percentage on grass according to Infosys ATP Stats?/h3ullia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/andy-murray/mc10/overview'Andy Murray/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/jannik-sinner/s0ag/overview'Jannik Sinner/a/lilia href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/novak-djokovic/d643/overview'Novak Djokovic/a/li/ul/section/iframe/div

pEarlier, a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/lorenzo-musetti/m0ej/overview'Lorenzo Musetti/a upset second seed a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alex-de-minaur/dh58/overview'Alex de Minaur/a 1-6, 6-4, 6-2. De Minaur was competing at a career-high No. 7 in the PIF ATP Rankings, having won the title in ‘s-Hertogenbosch last week. With his victory, Musetti snapped a 13-match losing steak against Top 10 opponents. The Italian next meets a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/daniel-evans/e687/overview'Daniel Evans/a or a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/brandon-nakashima/n0ae/overview'Brandon Nakashima/a./p

pFormer a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/tournaments/wimbledon/540/overview'Wimbledon/a quarter-finalist a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/taylor-fritz/fb98/overview'Taylor Fritz/a defeated a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/taro-daniel/da81/overview'Taro Daniel/a 6-3, 6-3, while a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/sebastian-korda/k0ah/overview'Sebastian Korda/a continued his good grass-court form by downing a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/karen-khachanov/ke29/overview'Karen Khachanov/a 7-5, 7-6(5). Korda advanced to the the title match at the ATP 250 in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Italian a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/matteo-arnaldi/a0fc/overview'Matteo Arnaldi/a eliminated 2021 Halle champ a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/ugo-humbert/hh26/overview'Ugo Humbert/a 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(6), saving one match point./p

pa href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alejandro-tabilo/te30/overview'Alejandro Tabilo/a and a href='https://www.atptour.com/en/players/alejandro-davidovich-fokina/dh50/overview'Alejandro Davidovich Fokina/a’s match was suspended on Monday night at the start of the third set. Tabilo returned to seal a 7-6(6), 3-6, 6-1 win./p

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