LONDON (AP) — Taylor Fritz dealt with his opponent’s 153 mph serve — it was the fastest in Wimbledon history, but Fritz won the point — and an overnight suspension before the fifth set to finish off a 6-7 (6), 6-7 (8), 6-4, 7-6 (6), 6-4 first-round win over Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard when they resumed Tuesday.
Not only did 2024 U.S. Open runner-up Fritz need to turn things around after dropping the opening two sets, but he was two points from defeat on a half-dozen occasions in the fourth-set tiebreaker Monday night.
“A really crazy match,” the No. 5-seeded Fritz said Tuesday after wrapping up the victory at No. 1 Court by breaking the big-serving Mpetshi Perricard at love in the last game. “I thought it was about to be all over last night in the fourth-set tiebreaker. But he came back on me in the first two tiebreakers, so I thought maybe I had one in me. I’m super happy to get through it.”
After Fritz forced the fifth set on Monday at about 10:15 p.m., the match was suspended because there is a curfew at the All England Club that halts play at 11 p.m., and officials were concerned about finishing by that time.
It was clear Fritz preferred to continue, but it wasn’t up to him. Mpetshi Perricard was in favor of stopping when they did — “I wasn’t in the best shape, to be honest,” he said — and didn’t like the idea of needing to pause things at 5-all in the fifth if it came to that.
“He didn’t want to. That’s totally understandable. I wasn’t bothered or, I guess, upset at him for not wanting to play. I totally get it,” said Fritz, a 27-year-old Californian. “But I still felt confident. It would have been easy for me to get frustrated about not being able to play last night. To be honest, I felt confident going into the fifth set — (whether) it was last night or today. I had to tell myself he’s going to be sleeping on what just happened in the fourth set. I’m going to come back and keep doing what I was doing.”
As it turned out, he needed only 35 minutes Tuesday to get the job done in a contest that featured 66 total aces — 37 by Mpetshi Perricard, 29 by Fritz.
On the third point of the match Monday, Mpetshi Perricard — a 6-foot-8 Frenchman who is 21 — smacked a serve at 153 mph, eclipsing the old tournament best of 148 mph hit by Taylor Dent in 2010.
Fritz not only managed to get his racket on the ball and return it, but he eventually took that point with a forehand volley winner.
“I don’t really mind it, because it actually gives me absolutely zero time to think. Normally when I start thinking, that’s when I mess things up,” Fritz said. “The fact that it’s just all reflexes — I think that’s one of the things I do better in my return game, when I like to stand close (and) chip, holding a backhand grip. It’s just handsy and it’s reflexes. I’d much rather deal with the speed than the spot.”
He lost in the first round at the French Open last month but is far less comfortable on that event’s red clay than Wimbledon’s slick, speedy grass courts, which reward the power on his big serve and forehand.
Fritz reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon in 2022 and last year and is coming off his fourth Eastbourne Open title on the surface last week.
“This is a huge, 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.”
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Howard Fendrich has been the AP’s tennis writer since 2002. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP tennis: https://apnews.com/hub/tennis
