Carlos Alcaraz finally made his Queen's Club debut and it was a rather competitive battle that nearly lasted three full hours.
The Spaniard arrived in London a few days ago practising without his coach Juan Carlos Ferrero who will join the Spaniard next week. These warm-up matches are very important for Alcaraz as he's only really played six matches on grass before this year.
It was a good start for him as he was able to survive a really tricky situation. Hours before the match his opponent changed due to a late withdrawal of Arthur Fils from the 2023 Cinch Championships. And Arthur Rinderknech is not the kind of lucky loser you'll be happy to see, especially not on a grass court.
He proved quite challenging for the Spaniard taking the first set and holding really well in the final set. The final set opened with a break for the French player but Alcaraz was able to turn things around and close it out in a tiebreak that was rather anticlimactic.
Despite earlier comments, Alcaraz looked quite comfortable on the court moving well and getting to many balls. He posted an incredible stat line with 53 winners and only 5 unforced errors in a match that lasted over two and a half hours. The second set saw him hit 20 winners and no unforced errors.
Rinderkench certainly wasn't that much worse with 40 winners and 8 unforced errors. One of those came in the final set when the French player played a volley on the net which went wide. He challenged the call but the line umpire was right, the ball was indeed wide.
Barely wide, but wide nonetheless. She received praise from umpire Lahyani as well as Alcaraz who praised her call as he would have probably lost the point, not electing to challenge the ball himself.
Nice call.
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