Milos Raonic smashes record at Queen's Club Championships: 47 aces in one match
Just as the Queen's Club Championships in London begin, Milos Raonic has already staged a coup. In a victory against Cameron Norrie, Raonic showed us a masterclass in serving to break a record for the most aces in a best-of-three match, ever. That would be 47 aces, to be precise. This becomes even more spectacular of a feat if we think about the amount of tennis Raonic has actually played these last few years, which is not a significant amount compared to most players on the tour.
With grass favouring first strike tennis, and paying huge dividends to big servers, the rest of the tournament could see a very interesting twist if Raonic can keep the momentum. The question looms then, for his next match On Wednesday. Milos will either face Taylor Fritz or Taro Daniel. Fritz, who also has a dominant serve could be stiff competition for Raonic, but due to intense pain, he had to withdraw from his first grass court match of the season in Stuttgart. In light of this, Tuesday will be an important match in deciding Fritz's future for this tournament and of course Wimbledon thereafter.
Other notable wins from the first round at Queen's include a walkover between Frances Tiafoe who retired injured, and Rinki Hijikata who goes through to the second round. Jordan Thompson causes an upset to Holgar Rune, beating the Dane in 3 sets. Grigor Dimitrov smashes 2 sets, emerging the victor against Adrian Mannarino and Chile's Tabilo vs. Spain's Fokina has currently been suspended after a one set victory respectively, Tabilo leading the third set 2-0.
Terra Wortmann Open Begins
Meanwhile in Halle, Germany, the Terra Wortmann Open is also underway. And while Queen's has the world no. 2 and 2024 Roland Garros winner Carlos Alcaraz, Halle has the newly minted world no.1 Jannik Sinner. Here he is hoping to score his maiden victory on grass. With his impressive first strike approach and epic service (arguably better than Alcaraz's serve right now) he is an extremely strong contender for not only this tournament, but Wimbledon too. However it will be Sinner's tolerance for multiple volleys that will be somewhat of a deciding factor in his hopes of locking in a win on this surface. We can't overlook some of the other highly talented grass court players and contenders for this competition, namely Alexander Zverev and Hubert Hurkacz (2022 champion) both of whom have massive serves. Previous finalists hoping to repeat their performance this year are Medvedev, Rublev as well as Tsitsipas and 2023 champion Bublik.
Notable wins coming out of the first round at the Terra Wortmann open so far include Hurkacz (beats Cobolli), whilst Medvedev secures a victory against Borges. Marozsán beats Safiullin, Koepfer wins against Auger-Aliassime, Sonego goes through beating Kecmanovic and finally, Zhang defeats Ofner.
