This time a year ago Taylor Fritz was playing Wimbledon as a main draw entrant. He was hailed as the next great American hope after stunning the tennis world by becoming the youngest American since Michael Chang to reach an ATP final.
Since being named ATP Star of Tomorrow 2016 Fritz has taken significant time out to spend with his newborn child. Fritz has played sparingly this year, playing in Australia and the American Masters events before taking the extended break.
Fritz won through three rounds of qualifying, the final round win a convincing 6-3, 7-5, 6-4 victory over France’s Vincent Millot.
Elsewhere, a pair of Chileans have started to help pull the country out of the tennis doldrums. Since the retirement of Fernando Gonzalez Chile has struggled on the men’s tennis tour. However, Chrstian Garin and Nicolas Jarry both managed to qualify this year. Jarry defeated the United State’s Dennis Novikov 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
Jarry: “Of course, I’m not totally used to it. Before coming here I didn’t have the confidence (on grass),” he said. “I had just one match when I was a junior so I didn’t know well how to play but we’ve been improving tremendously with my coach, tactically and my strokes. Now it works and I’ve passed this point.”
Garin won an epic with John-Patrick Smith, an Australian veteran who has reached the main draw of Wimbledon through qualifying before. Garin won 12-10 in the fifth.
Andrew Whittington produced the comeback of the day in defeating the United States’ Denis Kudla. Whittington won 4-6, 2-6, 7-6, 7-6, 6-0.
Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas qualified for Wimbledon for the first time with a win over Joris de Loore. Tsitsipas had lost to eventual winner Denis Shapovalov in Wimbledon Juniors last year, but the Greek will join the Canadian in the main draw this year. Tsitsipas won 7-5 in a fifth set of a match that ran for just over three hours.
Britain’s Alexander Ward will have the chance to create his very own Marcus Willis story. The World No. 855 beat Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-7, 6-4, 7-6 ,6-1. It will be just Ward’s second appearance in the Wimbledon main draw.
Willis was unable to make a fairy-tale return to SW19. Playing with an injury, he lost 6-4, 6-1, 7-6 to Illya Marchenko.
Lukas Rosol, who famously knocked Rafael Nadal out in 2013, reached the main draw after a win against Darian King. Simone Bolelli, Sergiy Stakhovsky, Andrey Rublev, and Pedro Sousa also qualified.
