Jannik Sinner Blasts Taylor Fritz | US Open 2024 Final | Post Match Analysis

hey what's going on guys Jason frosto for tennis and le.net and Welcome to our 2024 postmatch analysis of the US Open men's final between Yanik Center and Taylor Fritz if you want to find out who won this match and why stay tuned it's coming up next we know the stakes were really high in this match this would be the first opportunity for an Italian man to win a Grand Slam at the US Open if Center could pull it off right he'd be the first Italian male player to ever do that and if Taylor Fritz can win this US Open final he'd be the first American man to win a US Open or any Grand Slam since 2003 Andy rodic 21 years ago so this is a really big event just for those two simple reasons pretty historic stuff so with all that history in mind let's jump into the match and analyze this thing Taylor Fritz needed to serve extremely well in this match to have any chance to beat Center here today and the question is did get off to that hot start in the first set and serve as well as he needed to if we look at the stats a little bit we can see that Fritz served just 38% first serves in in this match in the first set against Center so right away he got broken got behind 20-0 Center jumped all over him right not just with his return to serve but also with his ground game and Fritz just simply didn't serve well enough to hang tight in the first set and besides the first serve struggles right getting a high percentage in the other thing that really hurt Fritz in this match was just when they got back into Baseline rallies in the first set one of the most telling signs of who the better mover is or the better ball Striker but in this case the better mover is the points W by rally length stats and if you look at the points won by rally length in this match any points going more than four shots in the first set Center won 13 out of 19 of those points usually that'll favor either the better ball Striker or the better mover but in this case it was CER that it favored because he's the better mover of the two players and we know that Center hurt his left wrist slightly in the match against Jack Draper in a really long highlight style point that they had so one of the most important things in the first set was Fritz to test that left wrist by hitting to the backhand side of Center but he really didn't test it that much if you look at the percentage of groundstroke Center hit in the first set forehand versus backhand Center was hitting a forehand 66% of the time basically two out of three shots from the Baseline Center was able to hit a forehand over a backhand he's running around his backand quite a bit and hitting really big forehands against Fritz so Fritz really needed to find and test that backand side early in the first set and he failed to do it and we know that Fritz served a low percentage of first serves in the first set right just making 38% of his first serves but Center was playing second serve return positions from on around the Baseline so again Fritz missed a lot of first serves and Center had a lot of opportunity to get second serve returns and potentially get aggressive with those and he was taking them from around the Baseline in the first set but he adjusted his position quite a bit in the second set versus of the first set so Center was thinking a lot about tactically what he needed to do in this match and how he was going to beat Fritz in this matchup so that first set was 63 cers way right did things turn around for Fritz in the second set and the key was the first serve because in the second set Fritz hung with Center up until 45 in that second set and he served at first serve percentage at 78% first serves in so he made a lot more first serves placed them really well and Center really struggled against Fritz's first serve in the second set he struggled so much with his first even and second serve wanted to various tactics a little bit that his second serve return position went from being at or around the Baseline to an average of 9t behind the basine in the second set against Fritz's second serve so tactically Center really thinking about what am I going to do in this match what do I have to do now that Fritz is making a lot of first serves in right around 80% for that second set I need to vary my tactics I need to vary my position I need to change things up to give him different looks and try to get more returns in play from my end of the court and we talked about right how Fritz really stepped up his first serve percentage in the second set and forced Center to kind of adjust his return a serve position but until that 4 five game in the second set Fritz had a chance to hold for five5 just sort of had a loose game there right didn't make as many first serves in that particular game which cost him and then Center came up with some really good tactics and some great shots in that 10th game of the second set to break for the set and another big key right to center winning this match was his own first serve he only served at about 51% first serves in for this match but when he made that first serve he won 88% of the points that he put into that service box so Fritz only won five out of 43 first serve return points points against Center serve he really struggled with explosive movements to the sides to chase down those serves and that's something that Fritz has to get better with well you might say he's been around the tour for a while now he can't improve his explosive movement he's got to work on it either way because if he wants to win a slam final against an opponent of this caliber right somebody like Center who's very explosive he's going to have to improve in those areas so he can make more first serve returns and avoid the pressure associated with having to hold serve every single game and if we look at the service stats for this match in particular right ATP Tour tracks serve rating serve quality and we can see that Center came in with a rating of 188 versus Fritz's 179 even though Fritz had more Aces and a higher first serve percentage for the entire match the quality of Center serves being closer to the lines and the outcome of those serves being better than fritzes right a lot of non- returnables a lot of Misses he's got a higher serve quality rating than Fritz does for this match and that's one of the most important shots in the game and Not only was Center the better server for this match right he was also the better returner in this match if we look at the serve return ratings for this match from the ATP Tour stats we can see that Center came in at an average serve return rating of 139 versus Fritz's 93 right so again a lot of that has to do with that Center serve being very close to lines and very difficult to return for Fritz but Fritz really has to improve his return of serve game and also look at the possibility of not just staying closer to the Baseline but really altering his return position based on how the server is serving in the match that's something that we saw Center do and that's something that Fritz definitely needs to explore a little bit more if he's willing to back up in certain situations based on how well the server is playing in that particular day and the third set itself was really interesting because Fritz actually got up a break 53 in the third set and just started hitting absolutely Titanic bombs off the ground especially with his forehand side you think he sort of got in the mindset of hey I can't beat this guy in longer points because he's the better mover so I'm going to try to get aggressive earlier in the points than Center does and I'll see you know where the chips kind of fall at that point and he ended up up a break 53 in the thir but there were some other critical things that kind of happened from there and within the third set that kind of cost him that third set in particular and one of those things was just the Rock Solid steadiness of Sinner's two-handed backhand in this case right we talked about how he fell on that left left wrist in the semi-final match against Jack Draper but here today in the final his backand was basically Flawless he only committed three unforced airs off his backhand side in the entire match he had 11 off of his forehand side but again the backhand was basically bulletproof at just three un four stairs if you look at Fritz's forehand in this match it let him down quite a bit more than cers did right with 18 un four stairs compared to Center 11 and even Fritz's backhand nine un four stairs which isn't that many over the course of three sets but compared to Center's number of three Center won the backhand battle especially in the crosscourt rally and the main reason that Center won that backhand battle and it held up a little bit better is he hits his backhand with more Top Spin he hits it heavier and that gives him much more margin on the shot Fritz follows through a lot of times on the back hand kind of opens up the racket face which makes the shot a little flatter at times and a little more inconsistent off certain types of balls it can be a weapon for him as well as he kind of does this on the backhand side and the balls tend to Skid through the court but even then it's also a little bit more inconsistent against somebody like center with that spinni or heavy ball and another factor in the ground game right we talked about Fritz making 18 un four stairs off the forehand side we know he's pretty far under the handle with his grip on the forehand side in particular he's closer to a full Western grip I know he'll say it's a full Western grip but if you look at his heel pad of his hand he's on about 4 and A2 which is is in between Western and semi-western so I won't call it a full Western just because of his heel pad position not quite being on number five it's again more on four and a half but a grip like that on a faster surface like this especially when playing somebody who's got a really big game like Center and hits the ball really big can be sometimes a little bit of the liability against really big pace and really big depth and again Center has the kind of weapons where he can exploit a grip like that a little bit on that side and cause some of those airs to really rack up so I know Fritz got to the final here the grip wasn't an issue for him in his other matches but he didn't face the type of Firepower in the other matches that he faced in the finals against Center another thing that really hurt Fritz in this match was his forward Movement Center used the drop shot a few times against Fritz when he got further behind the Baseline to exploit the lack of explosive movement from Fritz when Fritz moves forward into the court his forward movement is really lacking his side to side has gotten a lot better but Fritz really has to get more comfortable at the net in general and he has to get more comfortable when he has to make explosive moves forward he's got to be able to track those Drop shots down and nutralize them and end up finishing points at the net until he can do that he's going to be susceptible against guys like Center and alcarez who can use the drop shot to drop the ball right in front of him and the last big factor in this match guys was really Center's ability to move explosively in and out of the corners of the Court when he was on defense from Fritz we saw that Fritz actually had the higher number of winners hit in this match he was technically the aggressor in terms of winners but Center really did a great job of neutralizing Fritz's big shots to the corners by countering and countering with damage on those shots to turn the tables on Fritz a lot of times within just one shot and then Center would get back on the offense and finish off the points so Center's explosive movement in and out of the corners was a huge deciding factor in this match all right guys that wraps it up for our 2024 US Open postmatch analysis between yanx CER and Taylor Fritz if you found this video helpful or you feel like you learned something today make sure you hit that like And subscribe button I'm Jason frosto for tennis unleash Donnet I'll see you next time