Taylor Fritz has finally reached his place in the Grand Slam semifinals.
The now top-seeded American needed five quarterfinal appearances over the course of his nine-year career to finally make the breakthrough, but Fritz secured a place in the last four of the US Open by defeating world number four Alexander Zverev 7-6 (2), 3-6, 6-4 and 7-6 (3) at Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday.
The normally reserved Fritz could not contain his emotions and let out an emphatic scream as he sealed the victory.
However, this upward trend did not last very long.
“The emotional level has dropped,” he said. “It’s cool that I’m in the semifinals, but I don’t think the job is done yet. I’m going to keep taking it one game at a time, like I’ve done all tournament, and focus on the next game that’s in front of me. Today I played differently because I’ve been in this situation enough times.”
“I think a question I was asked pretty much every time I lost in the quarterfinals was: what do I need to advance? And the answer I always gave was just keep putting myself in those situations and then I’ll get more comfortable and get better.
“That definitely happened. The quarterfinals were no big deal for me.”
This was perhaps the biggest victory of Fritz’s career, but it was an even bigger victory for American men’s tennis.
Fritz will play the winner of Tuesday night’s clash between Frances Tiafoe and No. 9 seed Grigor Dimitrov. A win for Tiafoe would set up an All-American semifinal and guarantee a chance to end a 21-year drought since the last American, Andy Roddick, won the tournament in 2003.
Tuesday was just another highlight of Fritz’s career year.
Not only is he only the fourth active American to reach a Grand Slam semifinal after Tiafoe, Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton, but Fritz can also win four major tournaments in the ATP Top 10 – the most wins by an American in a year since Andre Agassi in 1999.
After failing in the quarterfinals at the Australian Open and Wimbledon this year, Fritz is closer to his first Grand Slam title than ever before.
This was not an exceptional match for Fritz and Zverev.
The two have played some extremely close matches over the years, including Fritz’s five-set comeback win over Zverev in the round of 16 at Wimbledon earlier this summer. In their 10 meetings, there were nine sets that required a tiebreak.
Two of those sets occurred in Tuesday’s match and Fritz triumphed in both – the first and the last.
Although Fritz came up short compared to some of the other statistics of the match, he performed well in some situations. He finished the match with 12 aces compared to Zverev’s 14 and also caused six more unforced turnovers (48) than the German (42).
But Fritz was in control for most of the match and controlled the proceedings with his strong serve game. In the fourth set he won 20 of 21 points with his first serve and 81 percent in the entire match.
“I can’t remember ever hitting my backhand this badly since I was on tour,” Zverev said. “I just can’t do it. I mean, I missed shots that went down the middle of the court and into the bottom of the net with no pace. Terrible. Just absolutely terrible of me.”
“My forehand was actually OK. My serve was OK too. But my most reliable shot, the shot I’m most known for, the shot I normally get up at 3:00 a.m. for and wouldn’t miss, was absolutely not there today and I honestly have no words for it.”
Fritz and Zverev have alternated victories since 2018, with Zverev leading 5-4 before Tuesday’s match.
The two are now completely balanced.
After his fourth-round win over Casper Rudd, Fritz said he was tired of only making it to the quarterfinals.
After qualifying for the semifinals on Tuesday, he felt it was time for him to take the next step.
We’ll see how far Fritz can go.
