If Sam Querrey has Wimbledon ambitions, he says he will approach them with baby steps, having not gotten past the second round. But even for a guy who stands 6-foot-6, Querrey took a fairly giant stride toward becoming a contender when he won the Aegon Championships at the Queen¡¯s Club with an impressive 7-6, 7-5 victory over Mardy Fish on Sunday in London.
¡°I¡¯d love to win Wimbledon,¡± Querrey said as he sat beside the massive cup that has some of the game¡¯s greatest names inscribed on it. ¡°I¡¯m kind of going to go with baby steps because the second round is the best I¡¯ve ever done there. You know, it¡¯s possible, but I think I¡¯ve still got some work to do, and there¡¯s still some great competitors out there you have to beat to win a Wimbledon title.¡±
Pressed on what he needs to improve, the 22-year-old replied, ¡°I think my return of serve can get much better because I hold serve most of the time. I think I lost serve only three or four times this week, so that allows me on the return games to take more chances. I think I need to start doing that, particularly on second serves.
¡°I think I could step up in the court, take some swings at the ball. Even if you fly it 10 feet long, you still let the opponent know, hey, I¡¯m going to take some cuts out there.¡±
If Querrey can persuade himself to adopt those tactics, he certainly will add a new potency to a game that is based heavily on that massive serve and an ability ¡ª quite rare in one so tall ¡ª to rally very steadily from the back court, even on grass, where the bounce tends to be a little lower.
It was his patience, as much as anything, that won him the match against Fish, who lost his chance of taking an early grip on the match when he allowed his practice partner to wriggle out of 0-40 in Querrey¡¯s opening service game of the match.
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