PREVIEW Queen's Club Championships Semi-Finals: Can dream Draper-Alcaraz final be made in London?

The stage is set at the Queen's Club Championships as Jack Draper and Carlos Alcaraz remain the leading lights involved in London as they aim to set up a dream final but will it be made or will their respective semi-final opponents have something to say about that.

It will be an overall battle with temperatures set to soar towards 33 degrees in the UK on Saturday so it will be a battle not only on the court but with the conditions too.

Jack Draper opens up as he faces Jiri Lehecka. The Brit will be the poster boy for Wimbledon having ascended into being the UK's undisputed best tennis player over the past year and a bit.

He is now World No.4 as of the updated ATP Rankings next week and will join Sinner, Alcaraz and Zverev as the favourites for Wimbledon as well as Novak Djokovic.

A pretty incredible rise for a player who struggled with injuries and always had potential but could never produce it as a result. But in reality too, it also leads to fresh expectation not seen since Andy Murray. The glare of the media will be on Draper in the coming weeks and he will have to learn to deal with that.

Either players do well under it or they crash and burn. Emma Raducanu was the last one to be built up then sent back down again when it went wrong. Katie Boulter less so but still has seen expectation ramp up based on a few steady results.

So Draper not only battles Wimbledon as a tournament but also being the leading light with the British press. He faces Jiri Lehecka who dropped his serve early against Jacob Fearnley but recovered to take it pretty comfortably 7-5, 6-2.

He raised his game as Fearnley wilted under the pressure with double faults aplenty. After missing the French Open, Wimbledon and Olympics last year, Lehecka is making up for lost time and has improved his record to 10-6 on grass. Five of those coming this year.

For Draper it has been deciders as opposed to comfortable routes through as the British No.1 came through against Brandon Nakashima 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in two hours and 22 minutes. He also had issues against Alexei Popyrin in the round before that.

But what of the tie against Lehecka, their Head to Head sees Draper lead 2-1. He has won in Doha and Paris in the last 12 months but Lehecka won their first tie in the Adelaide final in early 2024. So while it favours Draper to an extent, it also isn't exactly a foregone conclusion which sums up his tournament anyway.

Onto the second part of the puzzle as Carlos Alcaraz who will still be favourite to scoop the title again this week in London faces off against Roberto Bautista Agut who was an improbable task given that it was likely Holger Rune instead.

They go Head-to-Head for the third time with Alcaraz winning their last few at Indian Wells and Barcelona. RBA was all but out in round one against Nuno Borges and saved a match point and has also seen off both Jakub Mensik and Holger Rune both in three sets.

Alcaraz managed to get past Jaume Munar 6-4, 6-7, 7-5 in a similarly tough task in the second round. Albeit unlike RBA though, Alcaraz saw off both Adam Walton and Arthur Rinderknech pretty comfortably aside. Even at his pomp Bautista Agut likely stands little chance against the current Spanish king.

It also saw the tie that everyone likes to marvel about between two childhood friends in Rune and Alcaraz not actually happen so it perhaps gives an easier route through to the final for the Wimbledon champion.