It is 26 years since an American man last won Wimbledon, when Pete Sampras picked up the last of his seven titles. Taylor Fritz has aspirations to break that drought and on the evidence of his performance on Court No 1 he has a fighting chance.
A semi-finalist here two years ago, Fritz did a passable impression of Sampras with 23 aces as he reached the quarter-finals with a 7-6 (1), 6-4, 6-4 victory over the 10th seed, Alexander Bublik, in one hour, 38 minutes. Bublik also served big, cracking 13 aces of his own, but Fritz hit 47 winners and made just eight unforced errors as he set up a meeting with either French Open champion Alexander Zverev or Jiri Lehecka.
“I’m super happy with it,” Fritz said. “When I got my opportunities to break, I took them. When he got in some service games, had some looks and there were some scary moments, I served really well to get out of those situations. I thought I played really well.
“It’s a big thing in grand slams to get through matches without killing yourself on court. I had a tough one in the last round and it feels good to have a smooth one.”
Fritz was broken once, in the third game of the match, but he broke back immediately. Thereafter, he was impregnable on serve, while his blocked returns were also effective, Bublik often going for something extravagant and missing enough of them to give Fritz the edge.
The first-set tie-break was the key, with Fritz ripping through it 7-1. At 4-4 in the second set and Bublik 0-15 on his serve, the players stopped as loud noise filtered from Centre Court and via the fans on Henman Hill. The crowd then cheered and when play resumed Bublik double-faulted to go down 0-30. Two drop shots that fell short followed to give Fritz the break.
From then on, it was all Fritz. He wrapped up the second set when Bublik hit the back fence with a jump smash, laughing to himself at the sit-down. A break in the third game of the third set was effectively the end. Though Bublik still found time to play one of his trademark underarm serves, and win the point, Fritz served out in style to reach the last eight for the fourth time.
With the early exits of Ben Shelton, Jakub Mensik and Arthur Fils from his section of the draw, the fifth seed, Alex de Minaur, knew he had a great opportunity to go deep. But not for the first time, he was unable to produce his best when it mattered, going down 7-5, 7-6 (4), 6-3 to Flavio Cobolli of Italy.
The ninth seed reached the final of Roland Garros last month and made the quarters here last year, but De Minaur expected better of himself. He led 5-2 in the second set and by an early break in the third, but he was too passive, allowing Cobolli to take control too often.
“One of us went out to win the match and the other went out not to lose the match,” the Australian said. “It breaks me inside. That’s the reality of it. Many, many hours get put into my craft, and countless years to kind of have moments like these. To not step up to the plate, it’s truly gut wrenching.
after newsletter promotion
“You go through moments in your career, times where you feel that there are opportunities to be taken … to make it to the next level … and to fall short constantly, you start doubting yourself. The goals, the beliefs, the dreams that you have, they kind of start fading away.”
Cobolli jumped for joy at the end, another great moment in a golden summer. “I found the solution to play my tennis against his tennis,” he said. “That’s why I think I won. I beat him also on strategy. I played an amazing level.”
Cobolli revealed he and his family had nowhere to stay, perhaps not anticipating being at this stage. The situation was rectified, with an Italian family apparently lending them their house.
The late match between Zverev and Lehecka was held over until Tuesday due to the 11pm curfew, with Zverev leading 6-4, 7-5, 3-3.
