Taylor Fritz battles ‘raw’ foot, Karen Khachanov to reach first Wimbledon semifinal

THE ALL ENGLAND CLUB, LONDON — Taylor Fritz finally did it.

Three years after letting a golden opportunity to make his first Wimbledon semifinal slip through his fingers, Fritz survived what he called “raw” skin on his troublesome feet and beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 6-4, 1-6, 7-6(4) to make the final four at the world’s most important tennis tournament.

Advertisement

As comfortable as a four-set win by a favorite might seem, this one got seriously dicey for the Californian in the third set. Suddenly, Fritz was struggling to move and dropping service game after service game. Khachanov surged to a 5-0 lead in the third set, during which Fritz took a medical timeout to get treatment on his foot. Khachanov then broke Fritz to open the fourth set, and everything looked like it was heading in the wrong direction.

But then Fritz started to do what he has mostly been doing for 10 days now. He once again started rolling through games on his own serve. In the tiebreak he rolled as much as he had all afternoon. He hit four aces; he thumped an inside-in forehand return to gain the early advantage. On match point he pushed Khachanov deep in the court, drew the overhead and smashed it away.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” Fritz said on the court after. “Having played the quarters here twice and lost in five twice, I don’t think I could have taken another one.”

In his news conference, Fritz explained that his foot problem was not blisters, but raw skin rubbed away by a tape job to prevent injury caused by sliding.

“It’s just like some pads that are under your feet because the skin gets really irritated from moving and sliding in the shoes, just like moving aggressively.

“A lot of players get it done. For whatever reason, two of the matches here I ripped the pad or ripped it. It just got moved from me moving during the match. So it gets uncomfortable once the tape comes loose in the shoe. So I’m just getting it retaped. That’s basically all it is.”

Whether from raw skin that sounds like a blister or a blister itself, this one would have hurt. Fritz, the No. 5 seed, may not get a better opportunity to make the final four at Wimbledon. He had a great one three years ago, when Rafael Nadal tore an abdominal muscle early on and appeared on the brink of retirement. That’s what his family and his coaches wanted him to do. But the Spanish champion fought on and finally won in a deciding-set tiebreak.

Advertisement

The loss hurt Fritz as bad as any he had experienced. He said he wanted to cry on the court when it was finished.

He has struggled with his own abdominal tear this year. It forced him to pull out of Indian Wells and had him dialing back on practicing for months. But he finally seemed to find his health and his form on the grass last month. He won at Eastbourne the week ahead of Wimbledon, then survived two five-set scares from massive servers in the first two rounds at the All England Club, including one match that had to played over two days.

Then came Khachanov in the quarters, the No. 17 seed. He’d never beaten Khachanov, but he had not played him since 2020, when he was a far different player.

Tuesday was going so well until it wasn’t.

“I’ve never had a match flip so quickly,” he said. “The momentum was not going to be on my side going into a fifth set.”

For two sets he couldn’t miss, then all he could do was miss. His feet ached. He got some medical attention and used that dangerous serve to figure the rest out.

He will face the winner of Carlos Alcaraz vs. Cam Norrie in the semifinals.

(Photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

Click here to read article