Monday, March 10, 2025

Taylor Fritz

Press Conference

T. FRITZ/A. Tabilo

4-6, 6-3, 6-1

THE MODERATOR: Taylor, a tough one out there. How did you turn it around after the first set?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I just stopped making super-random mistakes. For the first set and a half, I just, for no reason, was just missing balls. I couldn't even imagine, I don't know why I was missing them.

But even with that, it was still a tight match, so I knew if I just cleaned it up and stopped giving away so many free points that I could probably turn it around.

Q. Was it just a sloppy start? Was that what was going on?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I mean, it was actually not awful in the beginning. The wind, like, every day since I have been here and honestly in past years, has kind of always gone one way. So I switched sides after the first game and thought I was against the wind, because that's the way it always goes. So I blasted three balls long on my first service game thinking I was against the wind when I was with the wind. So kind of just unlucky I misread it. So started down a quick break but played pretty well to get the break back.

Then, yeah, after that, it was just really sloppy. It's probably just a bit of the wind, a bit of rust, because I, you know, I took, like, you know, two weeks, maybe not quite two weeks, but didn't touch a tennis ball until the Tuesday before, like couple days ago.

So I think could just be that.

Q. You said the other day you were feeling about 80%. Has that percentage risen or do you feel better?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I feel healthy. I feel healthy. But yeah, I'm not going to feel as good tennis-wise as I have been, like, playing a lot of tennis and super confident, just because, yeah, had to take some time off to get it better. I'm not going to, I guess, feel like I have the proper prep.

I knew I was going to have to play myself kind of into the tournament, and I'm doing that.

Q. You played Jack Draper three times last year and all three matches went the distance. When you see his name against yours in a draw these days, what are you thinking? What are you expecting from him?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, it's going to be a tough match. I think it's a tough draw to get him in the round of 16 as a top-4 seed. He's a very good player. I think he's probably better than his ranking is, and yeah, we have had some tight ones.