On day three of the men's Queen's Club Championships, American Brandon Nakashima took the opening set against Ignacio Buse after an unorthodox break from 40-0 down, finishing the set and sending the match into a second set in which Buse was receiving serve.
Nakashima had been listed as the first match of the day at Queen's Club, and the early turnaround provided the most dramatic moment of the morning. The defining fact: Nakashima recovered from a 40-0 deficit on his opponent's serve to seize the first set — a reversal that flipped the immediate balance of the match.
The first-set comeback mattered in the moment because it did more than alter a single scoreline; it moved an opening-afternoon match into a real contest. After that break, the match continued into a second set with Ignacio Buse receiving serve — the precise hinge on which the remainder of the contest would pivot.
The action at Queen's was part of a broader day-three programme being carried live by the, which also had simultaneous coverage of the Nottingham Open from 15:00 BST. The Queen's centre-court schedule grouped Nakashima's early fixture with a lineup that included top seed Alex de Minaur scheduled to play Denis Shapovalov, and later encounters such as Jenson Brooksby versus Francisco Cerundolo.
Across the grounds, Adrian Mannarino was set to play GB's Arthur Fery for a place in the quarter-finals, a match framed by Mannarino's earlier surprise over third seed Jakub Mensik. The day followed a previous session in which GB's Cameron Norrie was beaten by Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, indicating a draw that has already produced notable upsets and will reward momentum.
The central tension in the Nakashima–Buse match is straightforward: a spectacular escape to take the first set does not equate to a match win. The break from 40-0 proved Nakashima's capacity to avert immediate danger, but the source material leaves the ultimate outcome unresolved; all that is verified at this stage is the first-set victory and that Buse was receiving in the second.
That unresolved endpoint is the day's clearest gap. For tournament progression the question now is whether Nakashima converted that first-set reversal into a full match victory and deeper passage through the Queen's draw. The day's remaining schedule — de Minaur against Shapovalov, Mannarino against Fery, Brooksby against Cerundolo — will determine how the draw reshapes, but the immediate prize on court one is the match result that follows Nakashima's comeback.
For anyone tracking the Queen's Club Championships, the one thing to watch next is simple and specific: did Nakashima turn the set-one escape into a match win? The 's live coverage of day three, and later centre-court play, will provide that answer and set the tone for the rest of the afternoon's order of play.
