Izuchukwu OkosiCarlos Alcaraz reached his first ATP final on grass and moved one win away from reclaiming the world No 1 ranking by beating Sebastian Korda 6-3 6-4 at the Queen’s Club Championships on Saturday.
Australian Alex de Minaur now stands between Alcaraz, the trophy and returning to a No 1 ranking ahead of the 2023 Wimbledon Tennis tournament.
Korda, the first American to reach the Queen’s semi-finals in 11 years, served nine aces but also double-faulted six times, with his slice regularly punished by Alcaraz’s heavy forehand shots.
Alcaraz won the only break point of the second set and held on to clinch a straight sets success.
Victory would give the US Open champion his fifth title of the year, his 11th tour title overall and move the 20-year-old Spaniard above Novak Djokovic in the ATP rankings – meaning he would also enter Wimbledon next month as the No 1 seed.
Meanwhile Russian Karen Khachanov had announced Friday that he will miss the 2023 Wimbledon as a result of an injury he suffered at the Roland Garros.
It’s the second year in a row that Khachanov, a 2021 quarterfinalist, will not play at the All England Club. Last year, he was banned from competing at the event as a consequence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This year, the Russian revealed that he suffered “an unfortunate injury,”—a stress fracture and a partial fracture in his sacrum S1 bone, in his hip and groin—during the fortnight in Paris, where he lost to Novak Djokovic in a four-set quarterfinal.
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