Carlos Alcaraz beats the heat in epic comeback against Munar at Queen’s Club
On a day of hot heads and high emotion, Carlos Alcaraz proved once again to be a master of escapology in the longest match at Queen’s Club for 34 years,With temperatures hovering over 30C on Andy Murray Arena, the Spaniard was 4-2 down in the final set, having lost four games in a row,To add to his sense of peril and woe, his serve was also misfiring and he had just hit his 50th unforced error,Yet he found a way – just as he had during the French Open final earlier this month,A few minutes – and a series of inspired winners – later Alcaraz was shaking hands with his compatriot Jaume Munar having won 6-4, 6-7 (7), 7-5 in an epic that lasted a little under three hours and 30 minutes.
It was the longest match at Queen’s Club since MaliVai Washington faced Mark Keil in 1991, with the second set alone taking an hour and 42 minutes.As Alcaraz pithily wrote on the BBC TV courtside camera: “Were we on clay?”The fact Munar was able to hit a barrage of 135mph howitzers on serve told you we were on the green stuff, but nothing else about this match made sense.Alcaraz double-faulted on match point when he had a chance to win in straight sets.His serve was patchy.And while there were the usual moments of genius, this was a day of struggle and strife.
However, Munar, the world No 59, was magnificent.Having lost his serve early in the first set after serving three double faults in a row, he happily traded blows from the back of the court and showed granite resolve under pressure.Meanwhile, Alcaraz took out his frustration on his coach Samuel López and complained to the umpire after a time violation as the heat and his opponent’s play got to him.“It was a really tough battle, Alcaraz said.“I struggled a lot mentally and physically.
I still don’t know how I am standing here but I am really proud to have given myself another chance in the quarter-finals,”This was his 15 consecutive victory, his longest winning streak in his career but Alcaraz said that even he did not know how he was able to turn the match around,“I just kept fighting, I guess,I didn’t give up,I tried to fight and play my best on the return of the serve.
But I still don’t know.”Earlier, the Frenchman Corentin Moutet lost his temper and his last 16 match to Britain’s Jacob Fearnley.This time last year, few outside tennis circles would have heard of Fearnley, a 23-year-old from Worcester.But he steadily climbed into the world’s top 50, on the back of a big forehand and thoroughly deserved his 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win which puts him into an ATP Tour quarter-final for the first time in his career.However, the match will largely be remembered for Moutet ranting at the umpire after being given two time violations in the third set – as well as a code violation for ball abuse.
“I am running every day for three hours and you are telling me what I have to do,” he told the umpire.“I explain it to you and you give me a time violation without listening to me.Oh my God! This guy’s crazy.Killing me.You’re killing me every day.
”Sign up to The RecapThe best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s actionafter newsletter promotionJannik Sinner suffered another blow with defeat by Alexander Bublik in the second round of the Terra Wortmann Open in Germany,In his first tournament since losing against Carlos Alcaraz in the French Open final, the world No 1 was beaten 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 on the grass in Halle,The second seed, Alexander Zverev, was also pushed all the way but survived a final-set tie-break to defeat Italy's Lorenzo Sonego 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (2),Katie Boulter survived a real scare against compatriot Sonay Kartal to maintain her hopes of winning a third successive Nottingham Open title,Boulter, who was replaced this week as British No 1 by Emma Raducanu, won her maiden WTA Tour title in Nottingham two years ago and backed it up last summer.
She extended her winning run in Nottingham to 12 matches with a 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 victory against Kartal, the British No 3,Boulter trailed 4-2 in the deciding set and had to save a break point to avoid going a double break behind, with the eighth seed struggling in the heat and consulting the doctor,But she rallied impressively to make it through to a quarter-final against the American McCartney Kessler,
Autumn tax rises ‘increasingly likely’ after UK borrowing rises in May – business live
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets, and the world economy.New data on government borrowing, and retail sales, are giving us a new insight into the state of the British economy today.On the fiscal side, UK government borrowing hit its second-highest level for any May last month, as spending continued to outstrip tax receipts.The UK borrowed £17.7bn in May to balance the books, £0
UK borrowing rises to £17.7bn, adding to pressure on Rachel Reeves
Higher tax receipts were unable to prevent a rise in public sector borrowing in May to £17.7bn, up from £17bn a year earlier and the second highest for the month on record.A poll of City economists had forecast public sector net borrowing – the difference between public spending and income – would be £17.1bn.The figures will add to the concerns that the government is struggling to bring down the annual deficit to keep within strict spending rules
Rough ride: how Uber quietly took more of your fare with its algorithm change
More than a decade after being one of 19 Uber drivers who took the company to court in 2015, Abdurzak Hadi continues to drive for – and fight with – the ride hailing app.The group won their claim confirming their entitlement to the legal minimum wage – but the Silicon Valley company’s insistence that its drivers were self-employed contractors meant the case went all the way to the supreme court. In 2021, Hadi and friends won there too.If that sounds as if the British legal system left the former Somalian refugee in the driving seat, he argues that life for Uber workers is now as precarious as ever.On Thursday, academics at the University of Oxford – in conjunction with the non-profit gig worker organisation Worker Info Exchange (WIE) – launched a report analysing a mass of data relating to 1
Trump signs order granting TikTok a third reprieve from US ban
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to delay the ban or sale of TikTok for the third time. The order gives the Chinese-owned social media company another 90 days to find a buyer or be banned in the US.“I’ve just signed the Executive Order extending the Deadline for the TikTok closing for 90 days (September 17, 2025),” the president said in a Truth Social post.Trump’s first executive order giving TikTok a reprieve came on his first day in office – just three days after the supreme court ruled to uphold the ban. Trump issued the second executive order in April
The first Lions match is about laying down a marker – but Pumas bring range of threats | Ugo Monye
Every single member of the British & Irish Lions squad is in the perfect sweet spot at the moment. Blair Kinghorn aside, they all arrived into camp with a spring in their step and a smile on their face because their dreams have been realised. Speaking from experience, it is amazing how quickly you can leave national allegiances at the door.At this stage, there is no sense of what the Test team will be, no division, or feeling that you have to make do with being a midweek dirt-tracker – the thing you are probably most nervous about is who your roommate will be. You know it will be someone from a different country and my first roommate was Keith Earls
Star-studded WR Chess repeat World Blitz title amid controversy in London
WR Chess, the star-studded world top 10 team, retained their World Team Blitz crown in London last week, but only after an almighty scare and with significant help from the appeals committee. WR had already been beaten for the World Rapid title by MGD1, a Pune-based group led by India’s Arjun Erigaisi.WR lost 2-4 to Germany in their Blitz quarter-final, but got the match annulled on the grounds that they had been advised of the wrong start time so had arrived two minutes late for a three-minute game. All the other teams arrived on time.WR stands for Wadim Rosenstein, a tech billionaire who plays on the amateur board of his team and who persuaded Fide to launch this new competition two years ago
Israel-linked group hacks Iranian cryptocurrency exchange in $90m heist
OpenAI boss accuses Meta of trying to poach staff with $100m sign-on bonuses
‘It’s terrifying’: WhatsApp AI helper mistakenly shares user’s number
Amazon boss tells staff AI means their jobs are at risk in coming years
Up to 70% of streams of AI-generated music on Deezer are fraudulent, says report
Elon Musk’s X sues New York over hate speech and disinformation law