The 2022 Queen's Club Championships: Davidovich Fokina wins and Grigor Dimitrov's shock loss

Fokina had won the Wimbledon Boys' Singles title five years ago. Although the Spaniard entered The Queen's Club with a 1-3 tour-level record on grass, he has proved capable of much more. He admitted that playing the first match is challenging because the grass is slippery, and immense physical strength is needed. During his on-court interview, he said that winning more games leads to confidence, and his match against Alex brought him much more. 

The 23-year-old saved eight of the ten break points he faced and converted all three he earned to pocket his second win of the week. He continued to talk about the difficulty of playing on grass courts. It needs tremendous focus; otherwise, it is easy to slip up. He admitted that Alex is an outstanding player on grass, and Fokina had to work hard to maintain his focus. He will now face Dutchman Botic van de Zandschulp in the quarter-finals. 

Dimitrov walks out of the tournament after a defeat against van de Zandschulp

van de Zandschulp defeated former world number three Grigor Dimitrov 7-6(5), 6-3 in the round of 16 matches held at The Queen's Club on June 15. Like the Spaniard Fokina, van de van de Zandschulp entered the tournament with one tour-level victory on the grass. He has three, having also chased out Briton Paul Jubb in the first round. The Dutch player scored a staggering ten aces, close to his opponent's eight. The 26-year-old delivered a clean performance with 81 points and zero double faults. Against him, Dimitrov secured 63 points but ended up making five double faults. The opening set was a neck-to-neck competition between the two players, but van de Zandschulp's accuracy and precision earned him the set, which paved the way for an easy second-set win. 

Denis Shapovalov's losing streak reaches five matches as he loses to Tommy Paul at Queen's

Canadian tennis player Denis Shapovalov's series of consecutive losses reached five matches on Wednesday after a 6-4, 2-6, 6-4 loss to Tommy Paul at the Queen's Club grass-court event. He hasn't won a match since May 12, when clay-court legend Rafael Nadal defeated him in the third round of the Italian Open. The Canadian also lost in the quarterfinals in Rome to then-world number 10 Casper Ruud. He was then ousted out of the first match in the next four events after losses to Ilya Ivashka of Belarus (ranked 50th), Denmark's Holger Rune (40), and Germany's Oscar Otte (61), and Paul (35).

Ontario-based Shapovalov is currently ranked number 15 in the world, but Wednesday's loss reduced his 2022 record to 16-13. Despite hitting 11 aces against Paul, he made six double-faults. He broke Paul twice on nine chances. The American managed to convert two of his four break chances and improved his career record against Shapovalov to 2-0. After the end of warm-up for Wimbledon, the grass-court Grand Slam starts on June 27 at London's All England Club. Shapovalov was a semifinalist at Wimbledon in 2021.