Taylor Fritz finds himself in the Wimbledon semifinals. And no one should be surprised.
You may not have thought you’d ever live in an era in which Fritz advancing to the last four at major championships would be commonplace. He spent the first six years of his career–from 2014 to 2019–outside the top 30 in the world. He didn’t break into the top 20 until February 2022.
Since October of 2022, though, Fritz has been a staple of the top 10 of the ATP rankings. He has become a bastion of consistency. Although consistency can put you in position to do big things, it doesn’t necessarily propel you to the next level. It’s part of the reason why Fritz has been written off as a Grand Slam title threat. This guy is very good, but can he be great? Another part could simply be because he is an American, and no American man has captured a major title since 20023 (Andy Roddick at the U.S. Open). The stigma is that they can’t win one–Fritz included. But, contrary to what Michael Jordan once said, the ceiling isn’t the roof. Given the huge serves and groundstrokes that Fritz is capable of delivering, the ceiling is sky high.
Yes, we’re here. We’re at the point in which Fritz is consistently making deep runs at slams and even making it look somewhat routine. It is true that this Wimbledon performance marks only his second major semi, but both appearances have come in the span of the last four(he was runner-up to Jannik Sinner at the 2024 U.S. Open). He has also played in four other slam QFs, all since Wimbledon in 2022.
It’s also true that Fritz benefited from a favorable draw in the past couple of rounds. Sure, he might not still be alive if he had been in Sinner’s quarter or Carlos Alcaraz’s quarter or even Novak Djokovic’s quarter. But plenty of players also had good draws (Alexander Zverev, for example) and they botched their chance.
Not Fritz. He did what he was supposed to do against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Jordan Thompson, and Karen Khachanov to secure his spot alongside Alcaraz in Friday’s semifinals. And we shouldn’t forget Fritz’s first two rounds, which were terrible draws. He faced the most dangerous unseeded floater in the entire draw and managed to defeat Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in five sets. Fritz faced arguably the second-most dangerous unseeded guy right after that in Mallorca champion Gabriel Diallo. That second-round contest also went five and, again, Fritz survived.
With his five match victories this fortnight, the world No. 5 is now an incredible 13-1 on grass this summer with titles in Stuttgart and Eastbourne. He is 23-3 on grass dating back to last summer, with two of his four Eastbourne titles coming during this stretch.
“I would say so,” Fritz said when asked if grass is his best surface. “I’ve made obviously a semifinal now, two other quarterfinals at Wimbledon. I think it speaks a lot that half of my titles are on grass, given that grass is such a short part of the year compared to everything else.
“Yeah, I mean I think it would be dumb of me to say that grass isn’t my best surface.”
And it would be dumb of me to pick Fritz over Alcaraz in the semis. But the fact that you have to say that he at least has a realistic chance says everything you need to know about how far he has come.
Ricky contributes to 10sballs.com and also maintains his own tennis website, The Grandstand. You can follow him on Twitter at @Dimonator.