American Taylor Fritz, 28, turned in a superb performance to reach the Wimbledon quarterfinals for the fourth time, defeating Kazakhstan’s Alexander Bublik, 29, 7-6(1), 6-4, 6-4 on No. 1 Court in one hour and 39 minutes.
The victory improved Fritz to 5-4 in his head-to-head series with Bublik and 3-0 against the Kazakh on grass, including a straight-sets victory in Stuttgart last month. Fritz struck 23 aces, hit 47 winners against just eight unforced errors, won 89 percent of his first-serve points and 76 percent of his second-serve points, and converted three of his four break-point opportunities.
The win sends Fritz into his eighth Grand Slam quarterfinal.
After falling behind an early break in the opening set, Fritz quickly settled. He broke back and dominated the tiebreak, racing through it 7-1 to seize control of the match.
From there, Fritz’s serve and first-strike tennis largely kept Bublik from finding the flashes of brilliance that had carried him into the fourth round. At one point, Bublik stood waiting to serve for nearly 20 seconds as applause drifted in from another court. When the ovation finally faded, the No. 1 Court crowd laughed and applauded before play resumed. Fritz secured the lone break in each of the final two sets before serving out the match in straight sets.
imago
In his post-match press conference, Fritz said: “Yeah, I’m super happy. It’s a really tough match against him. Just to get through it in three straight, especially after going down a break to start the first set, I’m super happy with how I played.”
On his return against Bublik’s serve, Fritz said: “I’d say the biggest difference just on grass is the way I return. I return a lot differently on grass. For me, in Stuttgart and here, I felt like I had just pretty good reads on some of the serves. I was getting good hits, good hits on his first serve, starting points in really good spots.”
Fritz added: “That’s what I did best today, was when I got my opportunities, I took them. When he had some chances on my serve, I did really well to get out of it.”
Fritz will face either Alexander Zverev or Jiri Lehecka in the quarterfinals when their fourth-round match resumes on Tuesday after being suspended overnight because of Wimbledon’s 11 p. m. curfew.