Nick Kyrgios admits it is difficult to look past a Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner final at Wimbledon, but he feels it would be silly to write off Taylor Fritz.
Fifth seed Fritz has reached the quarter-final at the All England Club for a third time in his career and he has done it the hard way as he has come through a brutal draw.
He faced the big-serving Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the first round and needed five sets to overcome the rising French star before also going the distance against up-and-coming Canadian Gabriel Diallo.
The American then dropped one set against 26th seed Alejandro Davidovich Fokina before he finally had an easy day out in the fourth round as Jordan Thompson retired with a thigh injury after going down 6-1, 3-0.
Fritz will look to reach the last four at Wimbledon for the first time in his career when he takes on Karen Khachanov and Kyrgios has been impressed with the 27-year-old so far at SW19.
“The way Taylor Fritz has been playing, it’s probably one of the hardest draws a seed has had,” he told talkSPORT.
“He’s played three guys who are all very dangerous on grass. He’s come through that and is saying his body feels better and better so I honestly wouldn’t count him out. Fritz can do some damage against those guys.”
Fritz has been one of the standout players on grass the past five years as he has recorded 35 wins – the most on the ATP Tour since 2020 – and he feels he is no longer a one-dimensional player thanks to tweaks.
Asked about the changes, Fritz replied: “The biggest tweak, like the thing that I experiment the most with is just return positioning and grips and stance on returning.
“Whether I want to be holding a chip grasp and standing in close, and then the chip grip is just my backhand grip, so I don’t have to switch grips or anything. If I want to take a step back, look to hit over, look to be switching grips, I guess, if we’re serving the other way.
“I’ve been able to just, like, I mean, from basically the first time I got on grass, before Stuttgart, the days leading up to the tournament, I just tried both, experimented, felt like this feels better. Just to see.
“I think maybe a couple years ago I was one-dimensional. I was pretty much only doing one or the other.
“Now I feel like I’ve found a good balance of, like, what conditions need to be met in the match based off of what my opponent’s doing off of it, how he’s serving, how I’m hitting the ball, to kind of decide which way I want to go about returning.”
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Of course, two-time defending champion Alcaraz and world No 1 Sinner are the men to beat with 24-time Grand Slam winner Novak Djokovic also in the mix.
Djokovic, though, will need to get past Sinner in the semis and Alcaraz in the final if he is to win a record-equalling eighth title.
“Novak has at times looked incredible but the way Sinner and Alcaraz are playing and dialled in, it’s pretty tough to go past those two guys,” Kyrgios said.
The Australian also feels Sinner is the man to beat as he added: “It’s hard to look past Jannik Sinner. He looks really locked in and incredible.
“He hasn’t lost more than four games in a single set. His form is concerning to the rest of the field. It’s hard not to see an Alcaraz-Sinner final.”
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