Just over two years ago, Taylor Fritz had left Centre Court a broken man. Against a wounded Rafael Nadal, the American let slip a two-sets-to-one lead to miss out on what could have been a maiden Slam semifinal.
On Monday, it was a sweet reversal as the 26-year-old came back from two sets down to oust German fourth seed Alexander Zverev 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 6-3 and enter the last eight. The result extended Fritz’s fine 2024 where he has either matched or bettered his best performances at each of the three Majors.
With just an inch separating the two burly men — Fritz at 6’5” and Zverev at 6’6” — it was mostly a battle of serves. The pair took care of this aspect remarkably well; there were just six opportunities to break and both won more than 80 per cent of their first-serve points. But the difference was in the seconds, where Fritz won 69 per cent (34/49) to Zverev’s 47 per cent (18/38).
In the first four sets, Zverev mostly had an answer to Fritz’s ploy of locking him into extended forehand cross-court exchanges. He broke out of the pattern often and used his double-handed backhand lethally.
But in the fifth, Zverev was troubled by his left knee, on which he had a strapping after hyper-extending it in the previous round. The 27-year-old gave up on many a ball, struggled to get to the low ones and couldn’t really recover from a 1-4 deficit.
“I was on one leg today,” Zverev said later. “[But] he is playing great. I think he is going to be in the semifinals. I expect him to win in the quarters.”
Comments
SHARE