For Taylor Fritz, the third round of Wimbledon is both new and familiar territory

INTERVIEW FROM WIMBLEDON: Taylor Fritz after his second-round win

A good way to describe Taylor Fritz’s current Wimbledon story: déjà vu, with an upgrade.

For the second year in a row, Fritz has reached the third round at The Championships. And once again, the American’s spring leading up to Wimbledon was complicated by significant physical challenges.

In 2021, Fritz had knee surgery just after Roland Garros and, amazingly, showed up ready to compete at Wimbledon just three weeks later. Ranked 40th in the world 12 months ago, Fritz worked hard at the All England Club, opening with a tight four-set victory over Brandon Nakashima, then going the distance to beat Steve Johnson, 6-4 in the fifth. Up against fourth-seeded Alexander Zverev, Fritz won the first set in a tiebreaker, only to lose in four sets.

This year’s woes came slightly sooner. In April in Monte-Carlo, Fritz began to feel pain in his left foot, an injury soon revealed to be a prestress fracture on the fourth metatarsal. For several weeks, Fritz’s foot was in a boot, hindering his training for Roland Garros, where the 24-year-old lost in the second round to 130th-ranked Bernabe Zapata Miralles. Then, on the eve of playing a grass-court event at Queen’s Club earlier this month, Fritz’s right knee began to flare up. He lost his first match to 99th-ranked Jack Draper. Fortunately, Fritz’s bout of tendinitis went away several days later.

This has been a breakthrough year for Fritz. In March, he won the biggest title of his career at Indian Wells, in the last two rounds taking out Andrey Rublev and Rafael Nadal. The week prior to Wimbledon, the knee pain in the rearview mirror, Fritz won a grass-court tournament at Eastbourne, beating skilled net-rusher Maxime Cressy in a final-round third-set tiebreaker. This was the second time Fritz had taken the title at Eastbourne—not surprising given that the 6’5” Californian has always had a tremendous serve, a crackling, lively motion that can direct the ball anywhere. Those stellar results and many more have helped Fritz climb up to No. 14 in the rankings, tops among U.S. men. At Wimbledon, he’s seeded 11th.

In contrast to the tough efforts of 2021, Fritz this year at Wimbledon has won his first two matches without the loss of a set. In the first round, Fritz beat a tricky shot-maker, Lorenzo Musetti, 6-4, 6-4, 6-3. Today, he defeated a British wild card, Alastair Gray, 6-3, 7-6 (3), 6-3, rallying from a 5-2 deficit in the second set and from a break down in the third.

“Yeah, I think it's never easy playing, like, the wild card,” said Fritz. “He's got a good grass game, definitely very awkward to play against. Maybe came out a little bit nervous, but I thought, you know, I played pretty solid the whole time.”

On Saturday, Fritz will play 51st-ranked Alex Molcan, a rising lefthander working with Novak Djokovic’s former coach, Marian Vajda. This will be the first time Fritz and Molcan have played one another.

The biggest improvement Fritz has made over the last year has been with his movement—and along with that, an even more dynamic forehand. This was quite apparent during Fritz’s Indian Wells title run, and it also surfaced at a critical stage today versus Gray. Holding set point in the second-set tiebreaker, Fritz found himself on defense, Gray at the net, striking what appeared to be a rally-closing crosscourt forehand volley. But as Fritz told Jon Wertheim and Steve Weissman on the Tennis Channel desk at Wimbledon, “The volley kind of just bounced up a little bit and I just thought, maybe if I fully lay out for this one, I can get a racquet on it.”

That he did, scrambling and lunging just well enough to hit a winner. In his post-match press conference, Fritz ranked the shot as the greatest of his career.

Much of the credit for Fritz’s enhanced court coverage goes to one of his coaches, Michael Russell (Fritz also works with David Nainkin and Paul Annacone). A former ATP pro ranked as high as 60th in the world back in 2007, Russell’s playing style was 180 degrees removed from Fritz’s—a grinding baseline-based game, propelled heavily by Russell’s emphasis on movement, fitness, and recovery.

“I feel pretty good about my game right now,” said Fritz following his win today. “I definitely think there are some things I could be doing better, but all in all, I think that the state of my game is in a really good place.

“I’m hitting my forehand big. My backhand is really solid. I feel like I'm moving pretty well, serving really well. Yeah, I'm happy, I think, that I'm in a good spot for a big run.”