ATP Tour

Paul notches 7th straight win at Queen’s Club, Hijikata upsets Lehecka

Tommy Paul continues to show that the HSBC Championships in London brings out some of his best tennis.

The 29-year-old American produced a gritty second-round display on Thursday to defeat Botic van de Zandschulp 7-6(5), 6-3 and extend his winning streak at the grass-court ATP 500 event to seven matches. Paul, who lifted the title at Queen’s Club in 2024 before missing last year’s event through injury, recovered from an unsteady start and struck a series of brilliant winners to book his return to the quarter-finals.

“I was just worried about my end of the court, really, and not worried about playing the other guy,” Paul said in his on-court interview. “I just tried to make my first serves. I think I could have done a better job of that today. I don’t think either of us played too many points where they finished at the net. There were a lot of baseline points, but I think the ball striking was good today.”

After dropping serve in the opening game, Paul found himself in a nervy first set that featured four breaks of serve between the pair. However, the eighth seed raised his level when it mattered most, delivering a composed tie-break performance before taking control in the second set.

Having withdrawn from the 2025 edition due to an abdominal injury, Paul has wasted little time making his mark on his return. The American now boasts an impressive 9-2 record at Queen’s Club, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, having defeated five Top-50 opponents on his way to the 2024 title.

In the quarter-finals in west London, Paul will face fourth seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, who earlier eased past the dangerous Corentin Moutet 6-4, 6-3 in one hour, 39 minutes. Davidovich Fokina now leads the Frenchman 3-0 in their Lexus ATP Head2Head series, having also beaten him in Hamburg last month.

“We know each other very well, so it’s difficult to play against a friend,” Davidovich Fokina said of Moutet. “He’s a very tricky player. You never know what the next shot is going to be… Today the conditions were hotter, but I knew that I needed to be focused on myself.”

Rinky Hijikata continued his run from qualifying by upsetting second seed and last year's finalist Jiri Lehecka 4-6, 7-5, 7-6(7). The 25-year-old Australian is into the quarter-finals at Queen's Club for the second time after his run in 2024, when he was also a qualifier.

"It was all pretty difficult. I went down an early break in both the first and second sets," Hijikata, the No. 104 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, said. "He [Lehecka] didn't make life easy. It was a tough match all the way through and then at the end, there was only a point or two difference."

Hijikata will face the winner of the second-round match between Hamad Medjedovic and Ugo Humbert. The pair split sets on Thursday evening before their clash was suspended due to darkness.