Stanislas Wawrinka has made a winning start to his Wimbledon campaign courtesy of a 7-6(4) 6-1 (2) 6-7 6-4 victory over Taylor Fritz this afternoon.
The fourth seed took almost two-and-a-half hours to overcome his unseeded opponent, but will next face either Stephane Robert or Juan Martin del Potro in the second round.
There was nothing to separate the two players in the opening set as both gave very little away on their own serve, with Fritz creating the only break point.
Wawrinka survived that, though, and also went on to hold serve throughout the tie-break, eventually taking it 7-4.
That appeared to affect Fritz and the American soon found himself two sets down as a result of three breaks in the second set as Wawrinka cruised to a 6-1 triumph in just 23 minutes.
However, Fritz rediscovered his form in the third set and once again took it to a tie-break, which this time saw him hold serve throughout to win 7-2.
Any hopes of an epic comeback were soon dealt a setback as Wawrinka reeled off four games in a row at the start of the fourth set and, while Fritz did fight back with three games of his own on the bounce, the damage had been done and Wawrinka wrapped up the victory 6-4.
Barney Corkhill
