Taylor Fritz was on the cusp of one of the most improbable feats in tennis history on Thursday when he won 20 straight points in his match against Dusan Lajovic at the Cincinnati Masters.
The World No. 9 on the ATP Tour was a game away from winning a golden set, which basically means the equivalent of winning a whole set without losing a single point. To win a golden set in tennis, a player needs to win 24 consecutive points to win the set 6-0.
Fritz faced a potential banana peel against Dusan Lajovic in the Round of 16. The Serbian star was enjoying one of his best runs on hard courts this season and was coming off one of the best wins of his career in the previous round when he upset Toronto champion Jannik Sinner in straight sets. But he was not in good physical health to challenge Fritz.
The American won 20 of the 24 required points to win a golden set. Fritz neither committed a single error nor lost a point to lead 5-0. But he was stopped in his tracks from winning a golden set as Lajovic retired, reportedly due to a toe infection. He was barely moving during the final few points and had tried to serve and volley himself out of trouble.
After just 16 minutes on the match clock, Lajovic briefly had a word with the ATP physio before deciding to retire. Fritz was ecstatic to get through to the last eight, where he'll meet Novak Djokovic, but he'll be a tad disappointed not to pull off this incredible feat.
It's such a rare accomplishment in tennis that the first and only time it happened on the main tour in the Open Era was during the 2012 Wimbledon Championships when Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova bagged the first set of her third-round match against Sara Errani 6-0 in a jaw-dropping 15 minutes of blink-and-you-miss-it moment, winning 24 straight points.
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