After two full weeks of tennis here at The Queen’s Club for the HSBC Championships, today we reached Men’s Finals Day. Our 2023 Champion Carlos Alcaraz made his second final appearance at the Club, whilst his opponent Jiri Lehecka was playing in his first grass court final on the ATP tour.
Lehecka has been a fantastic competitor this week, he made an impression on Day 2 here as he knocked out 2023 finalist Alex De Minaur. Lehecka followed that performance up with equally impressive wins against Gabriel Diallo, Jacob Fearnley, and 2nd seed Jack Draper in yesterday’s semi-final.
Carlos Alcaraz needs no introduction, off the back of his second Roland Garros title he entered Queen’s as the number 1 seed. Alcaraz’s most memorable match was his near 3.5 hour battle with Jaume Munar. Since that win, Alcaraz has looked more and more at home on the grass, and beat Roberto Bautista Agut in straight sets yesterday to make it to the final.
The first set was really close with neither player giving much away, Alcaraz had a break point at 2-2 that he couldn’t convert, and it wasn’t until his opponent was serving at 5-5 that the Spaniard was able to take his chance and break to serve for the set. Alcaraz made no mistake from that position and clinched the set 7-5.
The second set was again very close, with both players seeming to rattle through their service games and not give their opponent a look in. This one needed a tie breaker to split them, and this time it was the Czech who came out on top. The first time finalist here won the tie break 7-5 and had himself firmly back in the match.
Alcaraz did not let that speed bump deter him in the final set though. The 5 time grand slam champion got an early break to get himself a 3-1 lead. Alcaraz remained very strong in his service games and forced his opponent to serve to stay in the match at 5-2. As a true Champion, Alcaraz wasn’t taking any chances and attacked Lehecka’s serve to get the second break and be crowned Champion with a 7-5, 6-7, 6-2 victory.
Alcaraz wins his second Queen’s Club Championship and sets himself up to strive for another London Grass court double with Wimbledon next month.
Congratulations also goes to Jiri Lehecka who has been fantastic this week and took part in a brilliant final!