Alexander Zverev tried his best to outplay Taylor Fritz at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships despite being hampered by an injury, but the American produced a great level to prevent him from doing that.
The two met in one of the most exciting fourth-round matches at SW19 this year. The German player is currently second in the 2024 ATP Race, as only Jannik Sinner collected more points this year than he did, while the American was on a seven-match winning streak, winning the title in Eastbourne prior to the grass-court major.
What made this match particularly interesting was Zverev’s knee injury, as he wasn’t able to move as well as he would have wished to, but Fritz is no stranger to losing matches to injured players, as it was on the very same court that hampered Rafael Nadal ousted him in the 2022 Wimbledon quarter-final, before withdrawing from his semi-final match.
This year, even though against a different opponent, it was revenge time for the American player. However, his start of the match was far from ideal, and it had also to do with the fourth seed playing lights-out tennis at times.
Knowing he couldn’t move as well as he would have wished to, the former World No. 2 had to be aggressive, and that paid off in the ninth game of the opening set when he broke for the first time and later won the first set 6-4.
In the second set, neither got to break point chances, so it had to be decided in a tie-break, and maybe fearing the occasion, Fritz played it just too safely and he was punished for it, as his opponent was able to win it 7-4.
Knowing he was down two sets-to-love, the American had nothing to lose, and it showed in his play. He started to be much more aggressive, and his injury-hampered opponent started to struggle to get to Fritz’s lighting-fast serves and forehands.
As a result, the 13th seed was able to create two break point chances in the third set. First in the third game, but he couldn’t use that chance, and then in the ninth game, when he finally broke his opponent for the first time in the match, winning the third set 6-4.
The fourth set mirrored the second one, as neither found a breakthrough on their opponent’s serve, so yet another tie-break had to decide the outcome of the third set and if learning from one’s own mistakes was a tie-break, it would have been this tie-break from the American player.
Fritz played an incredible tie-break, never giving his opponent a chance to think about winning it. On top of that, one bad line call, which caused a rally in which Zverev had the upper hand to be repeated, even further derailed his chances of possible late comeback, but given how his opponent was playing in that tie-break, he had no chances of winning it regardless, as Fritz won 7-3 to force the decider.
He didn’t just force the decider, he wanted to play the decider and win it. Already in the fourth game, he fought his way to two break points, and despite heroically trying to win the first one and failing, he converted the second break point, and from there, he put on a serving classic.
Fritz just played an incredible match after being two sets-to-love down, and he won it 4-6, 6-7(4), 6-4, 7-6(3), 6-3 to reach the quarter-finals of the 2024 Wimbledon Championships.