Top-Ranked American Taylor Fritz Prevails At Wimbledon After Curfew Controversy

SportsMoneyTop-Ranked American Taylor Fritz Prevails At Wimbledon After Curfew ControversyByAdam Zagoria, Contributor

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights

More Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet, London

In a match that spanned two days, No. 5-seeded Fritz recorded his fourth career comeback from two sets down at a major to knock off huge-serving Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard, 6-7(6), 6-7(8), 6-4, 7-6(6), 6-4

Fritz won despite trailing 1-5 in the fourth-set tiebreak

He with 29 aces against just 2 double faults

Fritz was upset that the match was halted after the fourth set on Monday night due to the Wimbledon curfew because he felt they could have kept on playing and possibly the match

Instead, he said Mpetshi Perricard did not want to continue and the umpire susp the match. “Yeah, obviously it’s a really crazy match,” Fritz, the U

Open runner-up, said on court. “I thought it was 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, and I’m just super happy to get through it. ” Wimbledon is the only major with a curfew because of its contract with the village

The other majors are played in big cities -- New York, Paris and Melbourne

Of the curfew controversy, Fritz added: “It’s obviously not ideal

I felt if we weren’t gonna have time to finish the fifth set, then absolutely I think it makes sense not to play the fifth set

But we’re having sets as long as you could possibly play sets and they were still in the time frame that we had last night to play the fifth

Fritz returned the body serve and up winning the point

Dent had been reigning since 2010 with his 148-mph record. “Yeah, the funny thing I always tell my coaches, they always say I should try to serve body and I always tell them, I think body serves are awful, I never win the point when I do it,” Fritz said. “And I sent the to my coach, there you go, he served the fastest serve in the history of Wimbledon right into my chest and I still won the point

Body serves are bad. ” Fritz came into Wimbledon having won grass court warm-up tournaments in Stuttgart and Eastbourne, and he knows the expectations for him are high. “I was thinking that in this match, it put a lot of pressure on me, because I really didn’t want to go out in the first round,” said Fritz, who next meets Canada’s Gabriel Diallo

No American man has won Wimbledon since Pete Sampras in 2000, but John McEnroe believes the Americans are "closer than they’ve we’ve been in a while. " “Congratulations to him,” McEnroe said on air of Fritz. "He’s as good a competitor as there is

He battles and he competes to the very end

Sometimes things can turn when it looks you’re down and out

He gives everything he’s got. "You gotta think he’s gonna get to the quarters

Editorial StandardsRes & PermissionsLOADING PLAYER.