Taylor Fritz offers brilliant insight into serving, returning positions and court speeds
Taylor Fritz produced a clinical performance to kick off his ATP Finals campaign with victory over Lorenzo Musetti and after the match he gave a detailed explanation into his thinking when it comes to serving, while he also discussed court speeds.
The American came away with a 6-3, 6-4 win as he broke the Italian’s serve once in each set while he saved four break points in the opening set and didn’t face a break point in the second set.
Fritz served 13 aces to Musetti’s five, but their first serve percentage was pretty similar as the former was at 66% while Musetti’s was 65%. The crucial difference was points won when the first serve was in as the American was at 84% (31 from 37) and the Italian’s was at 40% (12/30).
During the post-match press conference, the world No 6 was asked if the outcome was decided by his excellent serve or Musetti’s poor returns and replied: “I think it’s more probably the quality of the serve.
“For me, I’m serving for, like, lines. I’m never serving to kind of put it in. I’d rather miss my serve than make it and it not be very good. I think I did a good job mixing up the serve. Yeah, I feel like I’m hitting the spots pretty good on the serve.
“To be honest, I think one of the things he’s always done really well against me is neutralise my first serve. I think he’s very good at chipping the return deep and putting it in positions where it’s tough for me to attack.
“I wouldn’t say it’s his return because I think that’s been one of the things that’s made it tough for me to play him in the past, is how well he can typically return my first serve if the spot is not very good.”
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The conversation about service speeds continued and went as follows:
Q. What is strange, Musetti’s average serve was 166, while yours is 145.
Fritz: “Second serve, though.”
Q. Yes. Less strong than Musetti. Apparently you place better the serve.
Fritz: Okay, let me explain (smiling).
“The speed only really matters to where we’re standing to return. He is standing further back to return, so there’s no reason for me to hit a bigger second serve because he’s five feet behind the baseline. I’m not going to rush him with a second. Why would you take the extra risk? I don’t think when he’s that far back he’s going to do anything with it. I feel fine to hit a much softer second.
“If we separate any of the points where he’s actually returning much closer, I’m hitting a much bigger second serve. Same thing the other way around: I’m returning his serve close, so he’s trying to serve very aggressive to take my time away. If I were to go back, he would probably kick his second serve and hit it a lot softer, so…”
The playing conditions Inalpi Arena was next on the agenda as there is a feeling that court speeds are being slowed down on the ATP Tour to counter the big servers.
However, the speeds in Turin appear to be pretty fast, much to the 28-year-old’s liking.
“It’s tough to fully prepare because even when you play practice, sometimes in practice it’s just not the same as a match,” Fritz said.
“So I think I have a feel for how fast the court is, but I won’t actually know until I get out there and play if certain shots are going to be working because the court is fast enough or they’re not going to be working. It’s not set in stone.
“I guess an example I could give is compare when we played at Wimbledon to here. At Wimbledon, it’s grass. It moves. But I’d say the thing about Wimbledon grass, if you spin the ball, it’s not fast. The spin checks a lot on the grass court.
“I think one of the problems I was having there is when he’s chipping – I think I’d have this problem in slow conditions as well – and I run around and I want to attack with my forehand, because he’s chipping it low, not giving me a lot of pace to work with, I have to spin that ball.
“I think at Wimbledon I was having a very hard time hurting him off of that ball. If you don’t hurt him off that ball, I’ve kind of ruined my court positioning by running around up there to hit a forehand. If my shot is not good, he has the whole court, cross-court, to hit a forehand if I try to go inside in.
“I think that was one of the big things in this match. The court’s fast. When he sliced, I was able to still be aggressive off of his slice and not really get punished if I didn’t hit it great. I felt like I was able to still hurt him on a lot of balls, where in past matches we played he can neutralize, I have a hard time getting it past him.
“So I think, yeah, the court plays fast. I was happy when I got on the court. I realised that was going to be the case in this match, that I could be aggressive and hit good enough shots to where he’s not going to just get there and go open court and I lose the points. I don’t have to pick and choose which ones to be aggressive on. I can pretty much be aggressive when I like it.”
