Carlos Alcaraz will meet Jiri Lehecka in the Round of 16 at the 2023 Queen’s Championships. The match will be played on Thursday June 22nd, 2023.
World number two Carlos Alcaraz is the top seed here at Queen’s and he is eager to get his Wimbledon preparations off to the right start. Grass is the only surface that he has not accomplished much on, and he got off to a shaky start in the First Round, recovering to defeat Arthur Rinderknech in three sets. He dropped the first set 6-4, before recovering to win 7-5, 7-6. He is still finding his footing on this surface but he does have the tools in order to succeed. He will have to be much better here against Jiri Lehecka but still enters this match as the favorite.
Jiri Lehecka is unseeded here at the 2023 Queen’s Championships and had a very impressive 7-6, 6-3 First Round win over Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. He hit 10 aces and had over 70% of his first serves in play, and if that is repeated here then he may have the top seeded Carlos Alcaraz in some difficulty. Free points are a huge advantage on this surface and he certainly has the game to do well here.
This should be an interesting match. Jiri Lehecka has done well this year, and if this match was on a different surface we might not be giving him much of a chance. However, Alcaraz is vulnerable on grass, at least for now. After considering everything, I am certainly staying away from the straight sets market, but I think that Carlos Alcaraz will just be able to edge out a win. He is a very quick learner, and will get better and better as this tournament progresses and he gets more experience on the grass. Alcaraz is three is my pick here at the 2023 Queen’s Championships.