Alcaraz Extends Best Grass Run With Queen’s Club QF Win

Playing in a grass-court quarter-final for the first time on Friday, Carlos Alcaraz used a fast start and a strong finish to defeat Grigor Dimitrov at the Cinch Championships.

The Spaniard’s 6-4, 6-4 victory extends his edge to 3-0 in the pair’s Lexus ATP Head2Head and moves him to 5-4 lifetime on grass courts. With his first Top 30 win on the surface, he advances to the semi-finals for the eighth time in his nine events this season — his lone early exit coming in the Rome third round.

“The work that I put in, the matches that I played [at] a great level helped me a lot coming into this really tough match,” Alcaraz said of his development on the grass. “Grigor is a top player in every surface, but I would say even more here on grass, he feels the ball really well.

“I just played really well from the beginning until the last ball.”

Alcaraz improved to 8-0 in tour-level quarter-finals this season by winning six of the match’s final seven games after falling behind 0-3 in the second set at The Queen’s Club in London. After Dimitrov stopped a run of four straight games to break for 4-4, Alcaraz took advantage of a loose service game from the Bulgarian to storm through the finish line.

After breaking in the opening game of the match, Alcaraz did not create another break chance until he broke for 2-3 in the second. Dimitrov settled in and attacked the top seed with his all-court game, but the Spaniard landed some crucial drop shots as he began to turn the tide.

The match was poised for more drama at 4-4, but Alcaraz won eight of the last nine points to set up a semi-final showdown against Sebastian Korda. The American was a 6-4, 7-6(1), winner against home favourite Cameron Norrie earlier on Friday.

The final 4️⃣ in LONDON 🌱

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With Alcaraz and Korda joining Holger Rune and Alex de Minaur in the semi-finals, all four of the remaining players are under 25 years of age.

“It’s great to play against the young players like me,” the 20-year-old Alcaraz said when told of that statistic. “We are setting the generation and obviously we are going to play a lot of matches at such great events, great tournaments. It’ going to be really fun to play.

“Sebi, he’s a friend,” he continued, looking ahead to Saturday’s matchup. “He’s coming with great tennis. Of course I would say it’s going to be a really good match. I hope the crowd enjoys that match because it’s something special.”

The 32-year-old Dimitrov, the lone former champion in the London quarter-finals, was denied his first Top 10 win on grass since he beat Andy Murray at Wimbledon in 2014.