By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Tuesday October 12, 2021
After notching the biggest win of his career, and his first ever Top-5 win on Friday, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(3) over Alexander Zverev on Friday at the BNP Paribas Open, Taylor Fritz talked about the most meaningful takeaway from the victory.
“I just had the confidence to keep hitting my forehand, keep being aggressive,” he said. “Whenever the chance to kind of make a play happened, I went for it. I felt good about it. It's the biggest positive I'm taking away from this match, for sure, is just how I felt.”
Fritz has experienced a bit of a plateau in the biggest matches on the biggest stages in his career. He has lost all seven of his third-round matches at the majors, five of them coming against Top-10 players, and until today, he was 0-10 against the Top-5.
Make that 1-10.
By rallying back from a set down to take out the World No.3, he has done his confidence a massive service. Perhaps this is the breakthrough that Fritz has been waiting for.
The American, who will face Nikoloz Basilashvili for a spot in the BNP Paribas Open final on Sunday, was elated with his performance.
“Obviously he's 3 in the world,” he said. “This is the farthest I've ever been in a big tournament. It's easily the best win of my life, against a really tough opponent on arguably the biggest match I could possibly play. So it's great.”
Fritz hopes he can take a new sense of fearlessness forward into the future. He says in the past that is what helped him make his way up the ATP rankings.
“Just that confidence to kind of go after the ball and trust myself, not play tight, tentative tennis, just really go after it and win the match. It feels good and I hope to keep it going,” he said. “I know when I'm feeling like this and playing like this, that's what makes me a good player, that's what gave me a lot of success early on in my career, was just that fearlessness to trust myself in the big moments.
“It's just really nice to kind of have that feeling back.”