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.
Join our WhatsApp ChannelKorda, 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.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
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