LONDON -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."
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ken Ferris)
