Alexander Zverev finally broke through at Wimbledon on Wednesday afternoon, beating Taylor Fritz 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinals to reach the semifinals there for the first time. The No. 2 seed needed only three sets on No. 1 Court to end Fritz’s run and keep moving at a tournament where he had never been past the fourth round.
For Fritz, the loss ended a streak that had made this matchup feel like his. He had won seven straight meetings with Zverev and led the series 10-5 overall, including a win on grass in Germany last month, but that edge disappeared quickly as Zverev served with control and kept the pressure on from the first set onward.
That matters because Wimbledon had already turned into a short, draining week for Zverev. His fourth-round match against Jiří Lehečka was still unfinished before the 11 p.m. curfew on Monday, and then he had to come back and deliver again two days later. He did, landing his first serve more than 80 percent of the time and winning three-quarters of the points on his second serve, the kind of numbers that leave little room for a comeback.
The match also exposed the one thing that could have changed the shape of the afternoon. Fritz, the No. 6 seed and the last American man standing, received treatment on his right knee during the second set after playing through knee tendinitis for much of the season. He said afterward that he felt good in warm-up and had no explanation for why things went wrong so early, adding that he would have liked to feel 100 percent and give Zverev a match. Instead, the body language and the scoreline told the same story.
Zverev’s win carries more weight because it comes after the first Grand Slam title of his career at Roland Garros, a result that has started to change the way his season is measured. Now he has a Wimbledon semifinal on his resume for the first time, while Fritz is left with the frustration of a straight-sets defeat that did not match the history between them. Zverev next faces Arthur Féry, the British wild card who upset No. 9 seed Flavio Cobolli 6-4, 7-6, 6-0 on Centre Court.
