Carlos Alcaraz will look to make a swift transition to grass courts after his heroics at the French Open and he will face a familiar face when he arrives at the Queen\u2019s Club in London.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz\u2019s<\/a> remarkable five-set win against Jannik Sinner at Roland Garros has been hailed as one of the greatest tennis matches ever played.<\/p>\n The Spaniard\u2019s fifth Grand Slam title was an emotionally and physically draining experience, so the 22-year-old decided to take some time away from the game before he turns his attention to the defence of his Wimbledon title.<\/p>\n So he will be short of grass court practice heading into the ATP 500 event at the Queen\u2019s Club, where he won the title in 2023.<\/p>\n That could give his first couple of opponents a chance to cause an upset to match Jack Draper\u2019s win against Alcaraz in this tournament last year.<\/p>\n Carlos Alcaraz facing huge tax bill after mega French Open prize money windfall<\/a><\/p>\n Rafael Nadal delivers Carlos Alcaraz, Jannik Sinner verdict after epic French Open final<\/a><\/p>\n The draw has been made for the 2025 HSBC Championships at the Queen\u2019s Club and No 1 seed Alcaraz will play Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in his opening match on Tuesday.<\/p>\n He will fancy his chances of getting through against an opponent who is better suited to clay courts, but the challenge is likely to be stepped up after that.<\/p>\n Big-serving Ben Shelton has a game that should be perfect for grass and he could be firing balls in Alcaraz\u2019s direction in the second round at Queen\u2019s Club.<\/p>\n The world No 2 also has the dangerous Holger Rune in his section of the draw, as well as former Queen\u2019s Club champion Grigor Dimitrov.<\/p>\n Alcaraz was criticised by his own coach and manager in the recent Netflix documentary focused on his story so far after he opted to go on a break to Ibiza after he won the 2024 French Open.<\/p>\n He silenced those doubts by winning Wimbledon last summer, so coach Juan Carlos Ferrero appears to be more relaxed about his decision to go back to Ibiza in recent days.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s switching off. Yesterday I told him to have a good time, that he deserved it, but to remember that he\u2019s a tennis player at all times,\u201d said Ferrero.<\/p>\n \u201cWe already know what he\u2019s like. He\u2019s doing well and when he comes back, he comes back in a good place, refreshed.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not the word party anymore, it\u2019s the disconnection from being with his friends, from not thinking about tennis and from being a normal 22-year-old.<\/p>\n \u201cHe does go on vacation, but only occasionally. He\u2019s not there every day, as people think.\u201d<\/p>\n Draper is the No 2 seed at Queen\u2019s and will take on American Jenson Brooksby in his opening match, with Frances Tiafoe in the same section of the draw as the Brit.<\/p>\n Taylor Fritz is also lurking in Draper\u2019s section, with the Brit set to come under the spotlight in his homeland like never before this summer.<\/p>\n Draper\u2019s impressive rise up the ATP Rankings will hype up the speculation around Draper and he will be the focus of huge media attention.<\/p>\n READ NEXT: Location of Carlos Alcaraz\u2019s French Open party is revealed as coach gives his reaction<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Carlos Alcaraz handed daunting draw as he prepares to return to action<\/a> appeared first on Tennis365<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Carlos Alcaraz will look to make a swift transition to grass courts after his heroics at the French Open and he will face a familiar face when he arrives at the Queen\u2019s Club in London. Alcaraz\u2019s remarkable five-set win against Jannik Sinner at Roland Garros has been hailed as one of the greatest tennis matches […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tennisring.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}More Tennis News<\/h3>\n