A familiar sight: Taylor Fritz, arms raised in triumph, the California sun beating down on him as the music kicks in.
It was deja vu all over again for the 2022 BNP Paribas Open champion at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on Saturday, as the top-ranked American battled past Chile’s Alejandro Tabilo 7-6(2), 6-2 to reach the third round at Indian Wells for the fourth consecutive year.
GET TICKETS“It’s unreal,” the Southern California native told the crowd after his win. “Like I’ve said many times, I came here as a kid for a long time, and this is my favorite stop for the whole year, hearing the crowd and the support when I walk out, it’s incredible. This is probably the only place in the world where I don’t think it matters who is on the other side – I feel confident the crowd is going to have my back.”
The 26-year-old American, sporting the spoils of his new alliance with the Italian fashion house Hugo Boss, had to wiggle out of a difficult first set before he turned up the heat on the No. 39-ranked southpaw.
“He served really well in the first set, didn’t give me a lot of looks on the second serve, so I got the tiebreak and I was thinking there was not much else I could have done,” Fritz said. “I was serving well, and I got some looks on the second-serve in the tiebreak and I kind of started finding my rhythm on return a lot better.”
It added up to a commanding win for Fritz, who cracked 24 winners against just seven unforced errors and was a menace on serve, dropping just eight of 53 serve points overall.
The World No. 12-ranked American never faced a break point as he broke in the first and fifth games of the second set to run away and clinch his 19th career Indian Wells win in one hour and 15 minutes.
Fritz will face either Sebastian Baez or Fabio Fognini in the third round.
