Taylor Fritz will take on Karen Khachanov today, looking to reach a Wimbledon semi-final for the very first time.
Fritz has come through some extremely tough matches and even trailed 5-1 in a fourth-set tie-breaker against Giovanni Mpetshi-Perricard in round one before prevailing.
Fritz has since overcome Gabriel Diallo, Alejandro Davidovich Fokina and Jordan Thompson to reach this stage of the competition.
The American has seen seeds fall left, right and centre in his quarter of the draw, and Fritz might view this as a golden opportunity.
Taylor Fritz asks John McEnroe how he can improve
It would appear that Fritz knows that his volleying needs some work, but he asked the three-time Wimbledon champion what else he can do.
The 27-year-old is itching to win a first Grand Slam title and reached his maiden final at last year’s US Open, where he lost to Jannik Sinner.
McEnroe believes there are a couple of things that he can improve on before he thinks about entering the winner’s circle any time soon.
He said on the 6-Love-6 podcast: “The second thing that I would suggest for Taylor to get over the hump is that when he hits a big ground stroke to be immediately be ready to move forward.
“He has great ground strokes on both sides but he hesitates. The transition game, moving forward.
“The other thing is that he has got to hit his spots a little bit better on his second serve.
“His second serve, at times, he sort of just spins it in. His first serve is huge.
“But to me, what I respect about Taylor is that he has maximised what he can do.”
Tim Henman also had some kind words about Fritz’s game but stopped short of offering him any advice as such, merely praising his game and how well suited it is to grass.
He said: “His grass court form is impressive. Two wins this week he has won Eastbourne four times now. He won in Stuttgart too.”
Fritz would be a very popular Grand Slam winner
It’s fair to say that Fritz would be an extremely popular winner of a Grand Slam, given how much he is liked on the ATP Tour.
However, it does feel as though he’s going to have to up his game a little bit if he’s to get over the line this weekend at Wimbledon.
Carlos Alcaraz would likely be his semi-final opponent and sadly for him, that does feel like a bridge that’s just slightly too far.
That said, this tournament has thrown up some strange results and if Fritz can work on the areas that McEnroe has pointed out, perhaps he can go all the way.
Whatever happens this week, Fritz does feel like a Grand Slam winner in waiting and the hope will be that he can one day get over the line and win a big title.
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