French Open<\/a> and will now be looking for a second Queen’s title after his 2023 success here.<\/p>\n“I’m trying to feel more comfortable and making the final at Queen’s is so special. I guess grass-court mode is activated,” Alcaraz said.<\/p>\n
“Every time I have a smile on my face I play my best tennis, so I just try to do that.”<\/p>\n
Bautista Agut was on the backfoot from the outset and had to save two break points in the opening game.<\/p>\n
World number two Alcaraz, who displayed the full armoury of his shots in the blazing heat, found the crucial break during Bautista Agut’s next service game.<\/p>\n
He sealed the opening set with possibly the shot of the match – drawing a wry smile from his opponent – after dropping his racquet low to the grass to volley a drop shot winner.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz threatened another early break in the second set but 37-year-old Bautista Agut – the oldest player in this year’s men’s singles draw at Queen’s – stood firm.<\/p>\n
But, as was the case in the first set, Alcaraz kept his foot on the gas and earned a break in the fifth game.<\/p>\n
It was not smooth sailing to victory, though, with the top seed asked to defend break point when leading 4-3 before going on to wrap up victory with a forehand winner in one hour and 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz is aiming to become just the second Spanish player to win the men’s title on two occasions after Feliciano Lopez, who lifted the trophy in 2017 and 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alcaraz comfortably booked his place in the final with a routine win against compatriot Bautista Agut in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":203035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-203034","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114722482759851269","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}