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New York Times

Carlos Alcaraz beats Jiri Lehecka to win second Queen's title at Wimbledon warmup

QUEEN'S CLUB, LONDON — Carlos Alcaraz made good on his 'Grasscaraz' epithet Sunday, beating Jiří Lehečka 7-5, 6-7(5), 6-2 to win his second Queen's title. Lehečka threatened to make Alcaraz's life difficult with a surge toward the end of the second and the start of the third sets, picking Alcaraz's serve more easily and hitting testing returns to his ankles. It earned him the right to take the match to a decider, and he started the third set as he ended the second, picking the Alcaraz wide serve to his forehand that had been his undoing earlier in the match and putting in more testing returns. But the Spaniard, who had served strongly throughout with 18 aces in all, found his range again, hitting the center and side lines with regularity. Advertisement Then he found his range on return, making two forehand chips that pulled Lehečka forward, the Czech missing a drop shot on the first to give Alcaraz two break points. Lehečka saved one with a brave backhand from well inside the service box, but then Alcaraz switched the pattern, driving a flat backhand deep to the middle that the Czech could only send into the net. Despite Lehečka again slamming returns into Alcaraz's ankles in the next game, the Spaniard held with a long slice rally that drew a ripple of laughter from the crowd, going up 4-1 in the decider and establishing what proved to be an unassailable lead. Both players had spent most of the opening set turning their heads to their teams in frustration. Alcaraz swung slice serves past a despairing Lehečka's forehand, while the Czech's deliveries leapt up off the grass, contorting Alcaraz into uncomfortable return positions. This was not quite the 'serve bot' performance Alcaraz has craved the past few months in terms of reliability — his 60 percent first-serves in for the first set is good, not great — but he won the point nearly every time he made it, serving 18 aces in all. At the other end of the court, Lehečka's slowly lost potency. That dynamic culminated in Alcaraz winning four points in a row to hold from 0-30 down at 4-5, before breaking Lehečka at the first opportunity to take a 6-5 lead. While a stiff breeze buffeting the flags atop Andy Murray Arena, things were calmer at court-level. The second set went at a clip, with Lehečka raising his level and Alcaraz not losing a point behind his first serve until his fourth service game. At 5-6, 30-30, Lehečka had a forehand on top of the net to earn a break point, but slammed it long. Leaning on the net in disbelief, the Czech knew he had given the world No. 2 a lifeline that could lead to his own unraveling. Advertisement Alcaraz duly escaped the adversity, but not without a time violation and a funny moment of tension when someone in the crowd returned a stray ball between the Spaniard's first and second serves. In the second-set tiebreak, Alcaraz lost the accuracy that had defined his serving during the match, allowing Lehečka to put full swings behind his returns and go up 4-2 at the changeover. But grass-court tennis is not all about serving. 4-3 down on the Czech's serve, Alcaraz made an improbable return, slid into a drop shot on the full run, and scrambled back diagonally to lift the next shot back over his opponent's head. One finger to the ear and two points later, he had the chance to earn a match point on his own serve, but instead double-faulted to gift Lehečka the opportunity to take the match to a decider. He did not pass it up, but Alcaraz found his extra gear in the third and the Czech could not keep up. The title sets up an opportunity to win all three of the French Open, Queen's and Wimbledon in the same year, which no player has done since Rafael Nadal in 2008. Alcaraz, the two-time defending champion at SW19, is also seeking a second Channel Slam in a row. For Lehečka, his run at Queen's is more evidence of how dangerous he can be on grass and hard courts. The Czech beat world No. 12 Alex de Minaur and world No. 4 Jack Draper en route to the final in London, and has a 19-8 record on the surfaces in 2025. One of those wins came against Alcaraz in Doha, Qatar, Both players will now prepare for Wimbledon, which begins June 30.