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Taylor Fritz will make his seventh appearance at Wimbledon when he takes to court on Monday against Germany’s Yannick Hanfmann.

The ninth-seeded American, who advanced to the quarter-finals last year, caught up with ATPTour.com ahead of his opening match to discuss his favourite Wimbledon memories, moments and much more…

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What is your first Wimbledon memory?
I didn't really watch a lot of tennis growing up, but one memory I do have is that crazy Rafa and Fed final. It was some match.

What is your first memory of playing at Wimbledon?
I played as a junior. It was really cool. It is the most prestigious tournament in tennis, so the first time there was a wow feeling. 'I'm here, I made it'. You take a step back and kind of look at it once you get there.

Francisco Cerundolo overcame the Eastbourne rain and American Mackenzie McDonald to reach the final at the Rothesay International on Saturday.

The Argentine led McDonald 2-6, 7-5, 5-2 when the wet weather intervened on Friday evening, but he wasted little time in reaching his fourth tour-level final and first on grass when the action resumed Saturday, advancing 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 in two hours and seven minutes.

Cerundolo, who has earned a career-best 27 wins this season, will continue the quest for his second tour-level crown when he meets second seed Tommy Paul or Frenchman Gregoire Barrere in the championship match later on Saturday. Cerundolo won his only previous tour-level trophy on clay in Bastad last year.

The American McDonald was in control early in the semi-final with a 6-2, 4-1 advantage. But Cerundolo snapped back with four straight games and then won six consecutive games to take the second set and open up a 4-0 lead in the third. McDonald snatched one break back in the deciding set before rain stopped play, but was broken immediately when the action resumed on Saturday.

While some of the most intriguing Wimbledon storylines will play out over the course of the upcoming fortnight, there is sure to be plenty of intrigue right from the start of the grass-court Grand Slam.

Of the 64 first-round men's singles matches on tap for Monday and Tuesday in London, ATPTour.com highlights five must-see matchups.

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[5] Stefanos Tsitsipas (GRE) vs. Dominic Thiem (AUT)

The nine previous Lexus ATP Head2Head matchups between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Dominic Thiem have come on some of the biggest stages in tennis. In addition to their two Nitto ATP Finals matchups — including the 2019 title match, won by Tsitsipas — they have also played at three ATP Masters 1000s and at Roland Garros.

Thiem leads the series 5-4 but lost a thrilling three-setter in their most recent meeting at the Mutua Madrid Open this April. After Tsitsipas escaped with a 3-6, 6-1 7-6(5) win in their first matchup since 2020, the Greek showed his respect for his opponent with some encouraging words at the net.

Daniil Medvedev’s earliest memories of playing grass-court tennis feature some all-too-familiar faces.

“My first time on grass was when I played junior Wimbledon [in 2013],” Medvedev told ATPTour.com last week. “There was a tournament beforehand in Roehampton, where they also play qualies for Wimbledon. I actually lost to Nick Kyrgios [in the second round], and he won the tournament against Sascha [Alexander] Zverev in the final.

“They were really amazing at their age. I was nowhere close because they were very young when they went on the professional Tour, into the Top 100 and started playing the best in the world. I remember them playing the final. I think I actually even watched it, and it was just like watching two legends, two junior legends, play.”

Medvedev may have taken a little longer to join Kyrgios and Zverev among the ATP Tour’s elite, but he now owns more tour-level trophies than both his former junior rivals. The 20th and most recent of his titles, which moved him clear of 19-time champion Zverev, came at the Internazionali BNL d'Italia in Rome in May. It was Medvedev’s first ATP Tour crown on clay, heralded by many as a breakthrough for a player who has never been shy about his heavy preference for hard courts.

Given he now owns tour-level titles on hard (18 of his 20 triumphs have come on the surface), grass (Mallorca, 2021) and clay (this year’s Rome win), is the World No. 3 any closer to considering himself an 'all-court' player?

Fourth seed Francisco Cerundolo was in position to put the finishing touches on a comeback semi-final victory at the Rothesay International when rain stopped play on Friday in Eastbourne. 

The Argentine led Mackenzie McDonald 2-6, 7-5, 5-2 when the wet weather intervened. Though the players returned to the court and attempted to warm up in the evening, it was ultimately decided that play would not resume until Saturday.

Cerundolo is bidding to add to his personal-best 26 matches won this season as he seeks his second ATP Tour title (2022 Bastad). McDonald, who beat World No. 9 and Eastbourne top seed Taylor Fritz in the second round for his third career Top 10 win, is bidding for his second tour-level final (2021 Washington).

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The American was in control early in the semi-final with a 6-2, 4-1 advantage. But Cerundolo snapped back with four straight games and then won six consecutive games to take the second set and open up a 4-0 lead in the third. McDonald snatched one break back in the deciding set and will serve at 2-5 when play resumes.

Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic completed a hat-trick of titles at the Rothesay International on Friday by stopping the 13-match winning streak of Roland Garros champions Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek.

The Croatians claimed their third ATP Tour title of 2023 with a 6-4, 6-2 final victory in Eastbourne. The champions saved all three break points they faced in the trophy match and converted on three of their four chances on return.

Seeded fourth at the ATP 250, Mektic/Pavic did not lose a set on the week and were pushed as far as a tie-break just once, in the opening round against Jamie Murray and Michael Venus.

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The title is their third of the 2023 season (Auckland, Stuttgart) and their sixth on grass — a haul that includes their 2021 Wimbledon title in their first year as a team. Since pairing up at the start of 2021, they have won 17 tour-level titles including four ATP Masters 1000 crowns.

Christopher Eubanks saved five match points Friday to reach his maiden ATP Tour final at the Mallorca Championships.

The 27-year-old survived a dramatic three-setter against Lloyd Harris 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(9) after two hours, 18 minutes. Eubanks dug out of a 0/40 hole while serving at 4-5 in the decider and saved two more match points in the final tie-break.

The former Georgia Tech University standout has soared 27 places to No. 50 in the Pepperstone ATP Live Rankings this week, setting him up for a new career-high. He will meet Yannick Hanfmann or Adrian Mannarino in the ATP 250 final.

More to follow...

Australians Thanasi Kokkinakis and Nick Kyrgios will face third seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in a popcorn first-round doubles clash at Wimbledon following Friday’s draw.

The fan-favourite pairing won its home major last season at the Australian Open and also teamed at the US Open and the Nitto ATP Finals. Now they will take their high-powered partnership to the London lawns, seeking a second major crown.

Kokkinakis and Kyrgios will face a tough opening test against Ram and Salisbury, who have won three major titles as a team.

Stefanos Tsitsipas and Petros Tsitsipas are teaming. The Greeks open against #NextGenATP Frenchmen Luca Van Assche and Arthur Fils and could play Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos or 2019 champions Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah in the second round.

The brothers, who are seeking their first win together at a major, competed at the All England Club in 2021 and also played in the main draw of the 2021 Australian Open and the 2022 US Open.

Some things are bigger than tennis. So while the world’s best players are preparing for Wimbledon, the No. 8 player in the Pepperstone ATP Doubles Rankings, Harri Heliovaara, is home in Finland awaiting the birth of his second child. 

“I have to say it was not an easy [decision]. There have been different approaches to this,” Heliovaara told ATPTour.com. “I spoke a lot to the German doubles guys. There are three of them [Kevin Krawietz, Andreas Mies and Tim Puetz] who had a kid recently and I got support from other players that it's okay to have a few weeks at home, to miss some tournaments. It's not the end of the world.

“At the same time, my wife, she hoped that I would be able to stay at home to help her the last couple of weeks before the baby's born, of course, [being] present when the baby's born and then a few more weeks at home helping her. It's a big change for her, for our whole family. So I thought it was important to be here.”

Heliovaara’s wife, Sini, gave birth to their two-year-old daughter in May 2021. When they found out last year that Sini was pregnant and that the due date would be the Friday before Wimbledon, Heliovaara wasted little time putting his priorities in order. He spoke to partner Lloyd Glasspool, with whom he qualified for the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals, in Australia.

“Obviously, if I could choose the day I would choose something else but it doesn't always go like that in life and we're super happy that we're having having another baby, which we wanted a lot. It's not always that things happen so that you get what you want, especially when you are talking babies here,” Heliovaara said. “So we're super happy that the baby is coming and, of course… I told Lloyd, my partner already in Australia that this is the case, we were expecting a baby at the end of June and [it] looked like Wimbledon might be difficult, my wife really hoped that I'd be home, I would like to be home when the baby's born.

Top seed Carlos Alcaraz will begin his Wimbledon campaign against Jeremy Chardy and could meet fellow 20-year-old Holger Rune in a blockbuster quarter-final clash.

The Spaniard Alcaraz defeated Alex de Minaur to lift his first grass-court trophy at the Cinch Championships last week and could play the Australian again in the fourth round. Alexander Zverev is also in the top quarter and is seeded to me De Minaur in the third round.

Former finalist Matteo Berrettini is also in that section. The Italian starts against countryman Lorenzo Sonego.

Second seed Novak Djokovic will start his quest for a record-equalling eighth Wimbledon crown against Pedro Cachin and could face Andrey Rublev, Nick Kyrgios or Felix Auger-Aliassime in the quarter-finals.

Australian Kyrgios, who reached the title match last year, opens against wild card David Goffin, while Rublev plays Max Purcell.

Top seeds Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek extended their winning streak to 13 consecutive matches Thursday after they advanced to the final at the Rothesay International.

Dodig and Krajicek, who triumphed at Roland Garros and last week at The Queen’s Club, ousted Australians Matthew Ebden and John-Patrick Smith 7-5, 4-6, 10-7 in the Eastbourne semi-finals. They will next meet fourth seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic in Friday’s final after the Croatians cruised past second seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury 6-2, 6-2.

Mektic and Pavic will be aiming for their third title of the season while Dodig and Krajicek look to extend their run by collecting a fifth trophy in 2023.

Top Seeds Fall In Mallorca
After booking a ticket into the Mallorca Championships singles semi-finals, Lloyd Harris returned to court with partner Yuki Bhambri to upset top seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-4, 7-6(2) and reach the ATP 250 doubles final. Bhambri and Harris fended off 10 of 12 break points faced to advance.

In quarter-final action, Robin Haase and Philipp Oswald downed Argentines Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 7-5, 6-4 after one hour, 29 minutes. The Dutch-Austrian team will next face Americans Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow for a spot in the championship match.

After qualifying at Roland Garros and picking up a win in his major main-draw debut, Italy's Matteo Arnaldi has once again come through the qualifying draw at Wimbledon. On Thursday, the 22-year-old secured his first appearance at the All England Lawn Tennis Club with a 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory against Frederico Ferreira Silva.

As the top seed in qualifying, Arnaldi lost the opening set of his campaign against Shang Juncheng, but then won seven sets in a row. 

The Italian competed in the Next Gen ATP Finals in Milan last season and finished 2022 at No. 134 in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings. He since reached a career-high of World No. 72 after winning his fourth ATP Challenger Tour title earlier this month in Heilbronn, Germany.

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Three other Top 10 qualifying seeds also booked their places in the main draw with Thursday wins. Fifth seed Radu Albot was a 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 7-6(6) winner against Felipe Meligeni Alves, sixth seed Tomas Machac advanced past Lucas Pouille via a second-set retirement, and 10th seed Dominic Stricker beat Mattia Bellucci 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, 6-4. Stricker also competed at the Next Gen ATP Finals in 2022, reaching the semi-finals.

How do you post consistent results on a surface that is anything but?

Nick Kyrgios believes a sense of on-court freedom is key to mastering the grass-court game. The 28-year-old Australian, who racked up a Tour-leading 12 wins on the surface in 2022, is renowned for enrapturing fans with his unpredictable, imaginative strokeplay.

“I think just the ability to take one hand off the racquet [is vital on grass],” Kyrgios told ATPTour.com last week. “Volleys, slicing, blocking returns, all the intangibles. You get so many bad bounces on grass, and [you have to be] able to slice and drop shot and bring so many different aspects to the game.”

Kyrgios’ homeland has a deep-rooted culture of grass-court tennis. The Australian Open was held on the surface until 1987, and the country’s ATP Tour stars continue to live up to that history. This year has been no exception, with Jordan Thompson (‘s-Hertogenbosch) and Alex de Minaur (at the Queen’s Club) both reaching ATP Tour finals across the opening two weeks of the grass-court season.

“I think you look at some of the best grass-court players in the world, someone like Roger [Federer] was so good because he was able to adapt and hit so many different shots,” said Kyrgios. “I think Aussie's don't mind getting a bit dirty and trying to find different ways to win. So that's why you see so many of us having some good results on [grass].

One of the longest careers in the history of the ATP Tour has reached its conclusion. Feliciano Lopez has said goodbye to the circuit at 41 years of age after 26 seasons as a professional, having lost on Thursday to Yannick Hanfmann at the Mallorca Championships.

He did so at home, surrounded by his family, his fans, and many of the players he has competed with for so long. Fittingly, Lopez’s final match came on the surface that has given him the most joy in his career: He has claimed more wins on grass than any other Spaniard.

Most Tour-level Wins On Grass By Spaniards

That achievement came by virtue of his unique brand of tennis, which came about despite having learnt the game in the same conditions as his fellow Spaniards in a system designed to produce clay specialists. However, his serve, his volleying and an innate touch at the net made him into a more classical grass-court player.

“I was a different player without trying to be, because of my identity as a player, my style and my serve,” Lopez told ATPTour.com. “But I didn’t train to have that style of tennis. I grew up like most Spaniards. I trained in Barcelona, but naturally decided to be this type of player, different to the rest.”

Christopher Eubanks’ breakthrough season hit a new height on Thursday in Spain.

The American reached his first ATP Tour semi-final by defeating French lucky loser Arthur Rinderknech 7-6(5), 7-6(4) in the last eight of the Mallorca Championships.

“My serve really came up pretty clutch when I needed it to. I was broken twice today. It was the first time I think I was broken in the tournament, so I had to kind of regroup a little bit after that,” Eubanks said in his on-court interview. “But I was able to kind of regain my composure, get back to playing the way that I can play, playing aggressive, and I think it worked out in the end.

“As far as Mallorca, I’ve been able to get a lot of support here, which has been surprising, so I really appreciate you guys for coming out. I know some of the big names have gone on to Wimbledon, but for you guys to still come out in this type of heat and humidity to support us really means a lot.”

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Fourth seed Francisco Cerundolo advanced to his first tour-level semi-final on grass Thursday with a 6-2, 6-3 win against Zhang Zhizhen at the Rothesay International in Eastbourne.

“Super happy. I think I played quite [well] on this match on grass, so I’m really excited to be in the semi-finals, to play here on centre court,” Cerundolo said in his on-court interview. “It was amazing, a lot of people. Super happy to be in my first semi-final in a grass tournament, so really excited for tomorrow.”

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Cerundolo is pursuing his first ATP Tour title of the season and second overall. All three of his previous tour-level finals, including one earlier this year in Lyon, have come on clay.

But the Argentine is starting to look more comfortable on the grass. Entering the week, he owned a 2-4 tour-level record on the surface. That has not shown in his two matches at the ATP 250, where he has made the last four without losing a set.

Top seeds Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin booked their ticket to the semi-finals Wednesday at the Mallorca Championships.

The Mexican-French duo downed Francisco Cabral and Rafael Matos 6-3, 7-6(3) after one hour, 22 minutes. Gonzalez and Roger-Vasselin, who collected titles in Marseille and Miami earlier this season, will next face Yuki Bhambri and Lloyd Harris after the Indian-South African team ousted fourth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos 6-4, 6-4.

Americans Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow also reached the last four in Mallorca, where they survived second seeds Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen 4-6, 6-3, 10-8. In second-round action, Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni escaped Marcelo Melo and John Peers 7-6(5), 3-6, 10-5.

Top Two Seeds Advance In Eastbourne
Ivan Dodig and Austin Krajicek defeated home favourites Liam Broady and Jonny O’Mara 6-4, 6-4 to extend their 12-match winning streak and the reach the semi-finals of the Rothesay International. The Croatian-American pair triumphed at Roland Garros and last week at The Queen’s Club.

Second seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury eased past Romain Arneodo and Sam Weissborn 6-1, 6-2 after winning 19 of 21 first-serve points. Fourth seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic also advanced after beating Gonzalo Escobar and Aleksandr Nedovyesov 6-4, 6-4.

Taro Daniel is one win from earning his way into the Wimbledon main draw. The Japanese star advanced to the final round of qualifying on Wednesday when he defeated Luca Nardi 6-3, 6-3.

Daniel has competed in the main draw at SW19 four times. The 30-year-old reached the second round at Roland Garros and the quarter-finals in Acapulco earlier this year.

Former World No. 10 Lucas Pouille won his second consecutive three-setter 6-7(4), 6-3, 6-3 against Giulio Zeppieri to make the final round of qualifying. Third seed Fabian Marozsan, who stunned Carlos Alcaraz in Rome, eliminated Elias Ymer 6-3, 7-6(1).

Denis Kudla, who advanced to the fourth round of Wimbledon in 2015, beat Tung-Lin Wu 6-3, 6-4 and another American, Michael Mmoh, defeated Dragos Nicolae Madaras 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Watch Mmoh Travel Like A Pro Feature: