Taylor Fritz advances at Wimbledon after an epic duel
WIMBLEDON, England – After overcoming his opponent’s 153 mph serve, the fastest in Wimbledon history, and an overnight suspension, American tennis player Taylor Fritz returned on Tuesday to win the fifth set and complete a first-round victory with a score of 6-7 (6), 6-7 (8), 6-4, 7-6 (6), 6-4 against Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard. Fritz, runner-up of the 2024 US Open, had to come back after losing the first two sets. In addition, he was two points away from defeat on several occasions in the tiebreak of the fourth set on Monday night.After Fritz forced a fifth set on Monday around 10:15 p.m., the match was suspended due to a curfew at the All England Club that stops play at 11 p.m., and officials were concerned about finishing on time.“A really crazy match,” Fritz commented on Tuesday after securing the victory on Court No. 1. “I thought it would all be over last night in the fourth set tiebreak. But he came back on me in the first two tiebreaks, so I thought maybe I had one in me. I’m very happy that I made it.”
Taylor Fritz
At the end, it only took 35 minutes on Tuesday to complete the work in a match that featured a total of 66 aces: 37 from Mpetshi Perricard and 29 from Fritz. In the third point of Monday’s match, Mpetshi Perricard, a 6-foot-8-inch Frenchman who is 21 years old, connected a serve at 153 mph, surpassing the previous tournament record of 148 mph achieved by Taylor Dent in 2010. Fritz, who lost in the first round of the French Open last month, feels much more comfortable on the slippery and fast grass courts, which reward the power of his big serve and forehand. He reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 2022 and last year, and is coming off winning his fourth Eastbourne Open title on this surface last week.“Obviously, it’s not ideal,” said the 27-year-old Californian on Tuesday. “I felt like if we weren’t going to have time to finish the fifth set, then I think it makes sense not to play the fifth set. But we were having sets as long as possible, and they were still within the time frame we had last night to play the fifth. Obviously I wanted to play it, but either way, I felt confident coming back today (and) getting it done as well”.
Taylor Fritz
In other matches on Tuesday, world number one Jannik Sinner began his Wimbledon campaign in ideal fashion by defeating Luca Nardi 6-4, 6-3, 6-0 in an all-Italian clash. The three-time Grand Slam champion, who lost the French Open final in five sets to Carlos Alcaraz, is seeking his first Wimbledon title. He was a semi-finalist at the All England Club in 2023.“This is a huge week for me, with the recent results on grass. So I was thinking about that in this match,” he said. “It put a lot of pressure on me, because I really didn’t want to go out in the first round.”
Taylor Fritz
Sinner will face Aleksandar Vukic of Australia in the second round.“The first matches are never easy, so I’m very happy with my performance,” he said in his on-court interview. “It’s a new tournament, new opportunities, new challenges. You have one opponent at a time.”
Jannik Sinner
