By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday June 18, 2024
Alcaraz extended his grass-court winning streak to 13th with a victory over Francisco Cerundulo.
Photo Source: TTV
Carlos Alcaraz stormed through the 2023 grass season, winning all 12 matches he played.
Fresh on the heels of winning his third major title at Roland-Garros on June 10th, the 2023 Queens and Wimbledon champion is up and running in 2024. Alcaraz powered past Francisco Cerundolo 6-1, 7-5 on Tuesday, stretching his grass-court winning streak to 13.
After flying through the opening set Alcaraz suddenly found himself in danger against the man who took Novak Djokovic to five sets in the round of 16 at Roland-Garros two weeks ago.
Down 5-2, Alcaraz rallied to win the final five games, and even saved three set points while serving at 4-5.
“The first match in every tournament is never easy,” said Alcaraz. “But even more difficult here on grass. You want to do a good result so you have to deal with the expectations that you put on yourself. I’m really happy with the match that I played and of course it was a good result playing against Francisco. It was close in the second set and it was good to have those situations, serving and returning to stay alive in the second set – I’m really happy with everything I’ve done and hopefully I can keep it going.”
Alcaraz, bidding to become the ninth player to win back-to-back titles at Queen’s Club, improves to 26-5 on the season and 17-2 lifetime on grass. In addition to stretching his grass-court winning streak to 13, Alcaraz runs his current overall winning streak to eight. The Roland-Garros champion will face Jack Draper or Mariano Navone in the next round.
In earlier action at Queen’s Club, Lorenzo Musetti took out Alex de Minaur 1-6, 6-4, 6-2, ending a run of 13 consecutive losses against the Top 10, while Taylor Fritz defeated Taro Daniel, 6-3, 6-3. Sebastian Korda joined Fritz in the second round with a 7-5, 7-6(5) win over Karen Khachanov, and Matteo Arnaldi defeated Ugo Humbert 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(6).