It's About Time We Talk About Taylor Fritz...

Taylor Fritz is the king in California he was once a top five player and he's been flying the flag for American men's tennis since 2021 he also beat rapael Nadal in the Indian Wells Final in 2022 and we dared to dream that he could one day put an end to the Grand Slam drought in men's tennis in the United States but it hasn't quite happened why is that it's about time we talked about Taylor Fritz's tennis so it's the sunshine double and what better time to talk about some of our favorite Americans Taylor Fritz being the best of the current crop gets him the nod but something strikes me each time I imagine what tennis fans in general think of Taylor Fritz do you see him as likable and exciting to watch or passive and boring or are you simply indifferent about him we are going to be addressing every aspect of his game and some of the general narratives that fans have about Fritz but let me first bring you up to speed with his career trajectory so far born into a family of athletes Fritz was predestined for the sporting Limelight his mother Cathy May was a top tennis player back in 1977 while his father guy Fritz also competed professionally and was a tennis coach as you would expect Fritz picked up the racket at an early age by the time he was in high school he had already won a California inter Scholastic Federation championship fast forward to 2015 and arm man Fritz was already the number one ranked boys Junior player and ITF junior world champion at the age of 17 o and he had also won the US Open juniors in doing so Fritz was the first American to hold this title since Donald Young in 2005 and Andy rodic before that in 2000 the stage was set and Fritz entered the ATP Tour later that year but since then it's been a story of es and flows Fritz broke into the top 250 the same year he turned Pro and there was more to come the following year after reaching the final in Memphis in 2016 Fritz became the youngest American to reach an ATP final since Michael Chang in 1988 doing so in just his third career ATP tournament he cracked the top 100 that same year and was on the brink of a top 5050 entry peing at number 53 at just 18 years old only a handful of players have come anywhere close in the last decade as we can see here although he did struggle the following year Fritz finally broke into the top 50 in 2018 and he began to make deeper runs in tournaments come 2019 Fritz had actually bagged his first ATP title at the eastburn international and things were looking up the growth in progress continued and by 2021 Fritz had reached the semi at Indian Wells and was already the top ranked American on tour it was a foreshadowing of what was to come the full circle moment for Fritz came in 2022 when we witnessed the unthinkable he reached the second week of a grand slam for the first time in his career at the Australian Open and he carried on with his fine form to the Indian Wells tournament which he won against Rafael Nadal snapping the spaniard's 20 match winning streak all well nursing an ankle injury I mean imagine winning your first Masters 1000 against a member of the big three on home soil and close to where you grew up nothing beats that feeling it was the first time an American man won arguably the biggest non-r slam tournament since Andre Agassi in 2001 Fritz would go on to beat Nadal again that year while also giving the best players a run for their money despite suffering from a foot injury that caused him to miss Madrid and Rome with 45 tour level wins that year including six top 10 wins and three ATP titles Fritz ended 2022 inside the top 10 and trust me it was one of the most impressive top 10 breakthroughs we had seen in a while he then picked up where he left off the following year winning the United cup and a couple of other titles to break into the top five but what followed that was a couple of terrible losses and disappointments like when he lost to world number 215 Wild Card shintaro Mizuki as the defending champion at the Japan open after being up a set and serving at 5-2 in the third for the match it was then rinse and repeat in basil when Fritz lost to world number 83 Alexander shevchenko after wasting 15 breakpoint opportunities and here we are now in 2024 although Fritz has reached back-to-back quarterfinals at Grand Slams defended his title in Del re Beach and is playing some great tennis again a lot of things have come to mind on what to expect of him his gameplay mentality and many of the narratives that you guys might have about him unlike Felix a Al aim and hogar Runa who we also made deep Dives about Fritz's tennis Isn't So straightforward but I'll do my best to address all of the narratives the good and the bad Taylor Fritz is an awkward moover on the court and it's part of what's preventing him from achieving more success well first off Fritz is a great player I mean his position in the ATP ranking already tells you that but let's address his movement honestly speaking we know that Fritz is not the most athletic player and I wouldn't describe his movements as fluid smooth or even explosive he lacks that natural quickness we often see this with taller players though and Fritz being 6' 5 in tall we can actually consider his movement to be average at best when you think of a player like denil meddev who has broken that mold by being taller and moving a lot better it becomes easier to understand why some fans get frustrated by Fritz's relative lack of movement it's also the same reason why closing points at the net frequently isn't really as Forte verdict agree Fritz is a great player but his movement or the relative lack thereof can be considered a major flaw in his game and it becomes more obvious when he's on the back foot which is why he isn't as successful on defense as he is on the offense but the problem isn't just about his court coverage Fritz's forehand doesn't do enough damage it needs to be better let me respond to this by saying that Fritz's forehand is powerful and good enough to be an elite player although his forehand potency per match isn't as good as that of Carlos alarz Andre rublev Novak jokovic Casper rude and other top players like we can see from this data from tennis abstract you can't point a finger to his forehand as a major problem in his game verdict slightly disagree could Fritz's forehand get a little faster and more consistent yes of course and although it isn't much of a problem for the most part his lack of movement sort of amplifies the situation because he needs those four hands to be Rockets seeing that he needs to resort to an offensive game most of the time to get the better of his opponents his rather extreme Western grip isn't the prettiest either it might be limiting at times but Fritz has told us that the grip works for him and that it comes naturally to him it's the same case with his takeback it is lower and he usually has his elbow tucked into his body with too much arm forearm wrist action the very best players can draw out errors from his ground strokes when they put him under pressure his technique isn't something your tennis coach is likely to recommend but again Fritz has shown that he can make the most of what he has has and besides he's already improved his forehand a whole lot over the years to the point where it's more reliable and consistent so let's move on to other things Fritz cannot slice to save his life he's one-dimensional one of the things that makes Novak jokovic who he is is the fact that he can hurt you from anywhere and with anything essentially the more weapons you have the more backup to fall to when things aren't going your way for Taylor Fritz truth be told he's just about the worst player when it comes to utilizing the slice on his backhand this data from tennis abstract shows that Fritz only uses the shot 6.3% of the time this means that for every 100 backhand that Fritz makes he only slices the ball six out of the 100 times only yanic CER has a worst stat in this category among the top players verdict slightly agree top players have won some of the biggest trophies and gotten away without slicing much I mean yanic CER just won the Australian Open and I'm not sure anyone really cared about him not slicing so while Tor Fritz isn't great at it it won't matter much if the other parts of his game could cover up for this lack of variation we're only talking about this because Fritz's game doesn't have the most variation technique wise what else have we got Fritz always puts too much pressure and is always hard on himself and that's prevented him from fully reaching his potential when you look at Fritz's under pressure rating on the ATP leaderboard you'll notice that he sits at a modest 29th position which isn't terrible but not where you want to be for a player who wants to beat the very best I mean take a look at the top five Under Pressure leaders britz also falls particularly short when you consider that he's only won 47.6% of deciding sets in the last year compare those numbers with cner who's on 81% meddev on 71% and Novak on almost 70% Fritz has acknowledged that his mental health and happiness are tied to how well he's playing which isn't exactly ideal he tends to overanalyze things a lot we've seen how hard he's been on himself scolding himself and sulking especially after tough losses being the front runner of a crop of young American tennis players Fritz has always had the weight of expectation on his shoulders and it has weigh him down at times when asked about how he was coping with all of it Fritz said quote it was more about the pressure and expectations I put on myself and I think over time that caused me to get away from the style I should play it caused me to play safer to be more passive I was just too scared I was scared to lose and when you're scared to lose then you just play not the way I want to play I learned you just have to go after it that's what I had to keep telling myself if you're playing to win you can't be scared to lose that's the biggest thing I've been thinking about and I found that I'm happier losing if I took my chances and the ball just wasn't going in rather than thinking I lost because I wasn't taking chances I was hoping the other guy would lose in the past Fritz admitted that he hated tennis saying that becoming a tennis player was not part of his life objective but with both parents already ex-tennis Pros the pressure came at a very young age for Taylor now taking all of these into consideration it becomes easier to understand why Fritz sometimes buckles under the pressure verdict agree albeit Fritz is handling the pressure way better now and it's something he has opened up about I think I just can go about handling it better and and and I already I already have he also says that he really doesn't care anymore and he feels like the spotlight isn't on only him anymore here's what he said in one of his interviews at the 2023 US Open bothered by the 20year drought that doesn't weigh on your mind then uh it's a factor I mean can't control I mean I don't I don't care like obviously I want to be the one that that ends it but so does you know so does Francis so does Tommy so does all the all the other Americans you know that doesn't really change anything like I want that's I guess that's not on my mind I want to win a slam and uh in doing that you know than all the other stuff but uh it's it's not as much pressure as I guess you'd say like the tin Henman thing because it's not it's not just me there's there's there's several of us so we we share that we share the uh the hopes of it I guess but some groups of fans believe that Fritz actually doesn't have what it takes to dominate the tour which leads us to the next point I do think me winning Indian Wells I was the first um American while to to win uh like a a big a big title so you know naturally people are going to start you know the next the next step is is winning a grand slam britz has hit his ceiling he'll never win a slam when you take a look at Fritz's game it doesn't really bear any resemblance with Pete Sampras Agassi John mackenro or some of the other greats he's probably closer or more in the mold of Andy rodic if you ask me but Fritz is unique and has his own special talents well I understand that us American tennis fans really hope to end a grand slam drought that's lasted over 20 years on the men's side it seems to me that it's a little unfair to compare him with these Legends apart from the big three plus Andy Murray how many other players have achieved anything close to what those guys did only a handful you literally could probably count them all on one hand at the moment Fritz hasn't made it past the quarterfinal stage at any slam and he only recently recorded his first win over a top 10 opponent at a Grand Slam at this year's Australian Open where he beat Stephano cipas but at the moment it's a little too early to conclude that he'll never win a slam he still is just 26 years old and like I've said in the past you only need the Stars to align for 2 weeks to win the majors with a favorable draw home crowd support and good form it's possible that we see Fritz making deeper runs particularly at the US Open verdict slightly disagree well at the moment it doesn't seem like Fritz is anywhere close to winning a grand slam that could very well change he has the dedication and hard work to keep improving so why write him off completely that being said you wouldn't be totally wrong if you assumed that I might be a little biased or really optimistic having talked about some of the problems and narratives we also need to talk about the good things about Fritz's game the first thing that comes to mind is Taylor serve Fritz is either in the top five or top 10 when it comes to percentage of first serve points one percentage of second serve points one service games one average number of Aces per match and serve rating in general he tis most of the boxes and on his day even the best players will find it difficult to provide answers to his serve so we'll need to give him credit for that being 6'5 helps for sure but it is what it is is is he too reliant on his serve well it's his best shot so maybe a little britz has worked really hard to get to where he is today with the help of a star studded lineup of coaches like Paul anacon Michael Russell and David nenin Fritz has been able to make the most out of his ability even his average level is a lot better than it used to be and he's more accepting of his performances nowadays even when they aren't consistent or perfect although the 26-year-old couldn't consolidate on the gains he made in 2022 and seeing how his level is dipped in 202 2 3 Fritz will be looking to take advantage of the crowd support during the sunshine double to make a statement as the leader of the home charge in the United States once again on a side note Fritz has also just switched his clothing sponsor from Nike to Hugo Boss and many fans are happy with that move saying that they want to see something more tailored for Taylor's physique Fritz can generate lots of power on his backhand and his shots are flatter and more penetrating when firing on all cylinders Fritz's backhand can do a lot of damage to opponents he has the ability to hit sharp angle crosscourt on both wings and really it's a thing of beauty we could go on and on with the many good things Fritz does but what many fans really care about are the results at the end of the day being mauled by Novak jokovic nine times in a row with no response for instance is something that his fans have had to deal with for quite some time now imagine what a win over Novak will do for his confidence over the course of his career Taylor Fritz has had lots of highs and lows and while we can't really make predictions on how the future will turn out we know that he's making inroads on improving his game so deeper runs at slams and more frequent victories against top 10 opponents isn't hard to imagine if you loved this video please hit that subscribe button and let us know if you want us to do deep Dives on any other player of your choice also I'm super excited to bring you the behind the-scenes content we've been shooting from around the WTA tour over the next few months it's up close and personal with the players we've been talking about on the channel and we're thinking about a Rebrand to more clearly bring a variety of tennis content your way from around both tours so if you see a name change don't worry about it too much we're just building on the content that we're already doing right now meanwhile if you missed out on this week's recap of the ongoing tournament be sure to check it out here