For Carlos Alcaraz, this Wimbledon match was his 30th Grand Slam victory overall but for Jeremy Chardy, it was his last-ever match in tennis.
The respected veteran has been part of the ATP Tour for many years but saw very little playing time since the Covid pandemic experiencing injury struggles. He played only four matches before this Wimbledon one against Alcaraz winning only one of those. Even before this match, it was clear that his level is not good enough to keep playing which is why he opted to retire at this event.
The inability to keep up with Alcaraz became clear pretty early in the match as the Spaniard stormed through the games. The first set was a bagel as Alcaraz smashed Chardy who was rather nervous to start the match. Evidently, the occasion impacted the experienced veteran as he couldn't get anything going at the start.
Zero aces and seven double faults are far from what we expect from Chardy even at this stage of his career. Alcaraz kept applying heavy pressure and took the second set rather easily as well. The final one featured more battling from the French veteran who is a long-time London resident.
Chardy put together a rather solid career winning one trophy (Stuttgart, 2009). He earned over 10 million in prize money winning 298 official ATP matches in his career and achieving a career-high ranking of 25 (in 2013). He couldn't do much against a very impressive Alcaraz who continued his winning streak on the surface.
The triumph in Queen's certainly gave him a lot of confidence in his grass tennis and he showcased all of that today. The final score was 6-0, 6-2, 7-5 for the Spaniard who blasted 36 winners along with 10 aces. He only had 14 unforced errors in this fabulous performance that sends him into the next round. According to the draw, Alcaraz will face either Alexandre Muller or Arthur Rinderknech in the second round.
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