Fifth seed Taylor Fritz reached the Wimbledon semi-finals for the first time on Tuesday after coming through a topsy-turvy four-setter against Karen Khachanov where the American seemed to be cruising, but then had to show all his fighting spirit.
Fritz eventually triumphed 6-3 6-4 1-6 7-6(4) but must have thought he was in for an easier passage as he ripped through the first two sets.
Russia’s Khachanov, the 17th seed, also seeking a first Wimbledon semi, then won eight of the next nine games to take the third set and move a break up in the fourth.
Fritz, however, regrouped to immediately break back, regain control of his service, and triumph in the decisive tiebreak.
“I’ve never really had the match change like that so drastically where I felt so in control, playing great, serving great,” Fritz said. “I didn’t feel like my serve was in danger, I felt like I was putting a lot of pressure on his serve.
“I felt like I couldn’t miss and then, out of nowhere, I just started making a ton of mistakes. So I really just had to fight to get that break back in the fourth and kind of just get the match back to neutral.”
Fritz arrived at Wimbledon in hot grass form after title wins in Stuttgart and Eastbourne and got off to a flier on Tuesday, breaking in the second game and proceeding untroubled to take the set.
It got to 4-4 on serve in the second before Khachanov fell apart to be broken to love and Fritz served out to love for a 2-0 set lead.
In his opening 10 service games the American dropped only seven points and did not face a break point as he won an impressive 88% of points on first serve.
Dramatic change
It all changed dramatically and unexpectedly in the third as Fritz’s game seemed to fall apart. From cruise control on serve for 90 minutes, he was broken twice, spraying his groundstrokes long and wide, as Khachanov finally found a way to get his serves back and added some venom to his own attack.
Fritz must have been wondering what happened and had time to reset as he received treatment for a foot blister.
It did not seem to change anything though as the American was again loose while Khachanov visibly grew in confidence, bossing the rallies and immediately breaking. He then rattled through a high-speed service game for a 2-0 fourth-set lead.
The Number One Court crowd, desperate to be entertained, were all in on the comeback, but Fritz managed to stem the bleeding by immediately breaking back and then rediscovering his serve dominance.
He still had to work hard, however, before coming through in the tiebreak to set up a meeting with either defending champion Carlos Alcaraz or home hope Cameron Norrie.
“It’s an amazing feeling,” he said. “Having played the quarter-finals here twice and lost in five twice I don’t think I could have taken another one.
“I’m really happy with how I’ve really turned my career around over the last four years or so. I’ve put in a lot of work, and it’s great to see the results.”
Sabalenka survives Siegemund spell to reach Wimbledon semis
Aryna Sabalenka was dragged into a bygone era on Tuesday and tormented for almost three hours on Wimbledon’s Centre Court before finally imposing her 21st-century power game to beat mesmeric Laura Siegemund for a place in the semi-finals.
The Belarusian needed all her powers of ball bludgeoning and belief to emerge from a befuddling battle, somehow the victor, 4-6 6-2 6-4.
For much of the spell-binding contest it looked as though the world number one would find no answers to Siegemund’s sorcery as the 37-year-old German veteran chipped, chopped and drop-shotted the world’s best player to pieces, leaving the top seed’s power game neutered on the turf.
Ranked a lowly 104 in the world, Siegemund drew on the game of a gentler age to bring low the mighty Belarusian, casting spells of slice and sleight with vintage flair.
But slowly, if not exactly surely, the 10 years younger and seemingly stronger Sabalenka managed to wrestle back the upper hand, and now plays American 13th seed Amanda Anisimova, who beat Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, for a place in Saturday’s final.
“I need some time to recover … She pushed me so much and honestly after the first set I was just like looking at my box thinking like, ‘Guys I mean like book the tickets you know, I think we’re about to leave this beautiful city, country, place’.
“But wow she played an incredible tournament, an incredible match and I’m just super happy right now with the win and, oh my god guys, like atmosphere — it’s just another level.”
Nostalgic display
For Siegemund, this was not the performance of a player whose previous Wimbledon record amounted to three first-round exits and a solitary second-round finish.
Everything about the German evoked nostalgia.
The ball left her racket not with a thud, but a sigh — a soft brushstroke rather than a blunt strike. Serves landed halfway up the box before spinning wide; forehands floated underspun onto the baseline.
It may have looked delicate, but it was anything but harmless — as Sabalenka discovered to her mounting despair.
All the skills honed through a career rich in doubles nous — three Grand Slam titles across women’s and mixed — were on full display: low, skimming returns, feathered lobs, angled passes and volleys that died on impact.
The extraordinary level of accuracy and control was sure to dip and, in the second set it did. Only a little, but enough to let the world number one level the match.
But in the decisive third, Siegemund was back to her best, mixing it up and sticking to her tactics.
The two exchanged the most marginal of upper hands to let the other nose ahead until finally, as the clock nudged towards three hours, Sabalenka sealed the win, pounding a powerful overhead home and shrieking for joy.