Every word Taylor Fritz said as he reveals how he beat Carlos Alcaraz

Taylor Fritz served up one of the shock results of the tennis year so far as he downed world No 1 Carlos Alcaraz in straight sets to put Team World in a dominant position on Day 2 at the Laver Cup.

The American No 1 sealed a 6-3, 6-2 win over the Spaniard rounded off a perfect day of singles results for Team World, with Alex de Minaur and Francisco Cerundolo also beating a shellshocked Team Europe.

The stand-out result was Fritz’s first win in four attempts against Alcaraz and he spoke to the media in San Francisco to reveal how he beat the form player in men’s tennis.

How did you feel about the match?

Fritz: I think I had a pretty clear idea of what I needed to do going out there. Just how the court is, how the conditions are, it’s really slow out there, so I felt like I had to press a little more with just my rally ball just to up my rally ball that I’m hoping to be very consistent with, because if I didn’t, I felt like he was going to beat me to the punch and hurt me.

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I felt like it was going to be very hard on a surface like this for me to hurt him. I felt like it was going to be very easy for him to put me out of position, as opposed to me being able to put him out of position. So I did a really good job with that. Going into it I kind of just accepted that if I make errors, I make errors, but it was going to give me the best chance to win.

I did a really good job of hitting big, doing it consistently, and kind of pulling the trigger when I got the right balls to do it on and, you know, playing the important points pretty fearlessly.

Did you believe you could beat Alcaraz after losing your first three matches against him?

Fritz: I definitely take a lot of confidence from the Wimbledon match because it was very tight, but at the same time, Wimbledon match, you know, I kind of threw away the first set by getting broken in the first game.

I felt like in that Wimbledon match, the set that I won, the set that I had the set points in were two sets that I was really happy with how I played. So I obviously took a lot of confidence from that. But I also at the same time know that those conditions are way better for me in this matchup than these conditions. I did feel like I would have to play with a lot more risk today than I did in that Wimbledon match.

A very good example of kind of what I’m talking about is if anyone wants to look at the 15-30 point of the first game and then the first point of the second game. Points where I pull the trigger on the forehand inside in, and I think I hit it great.

If I’m on a faster surface, I probably get some reward out of it, but on this surface the first one he hits a clean winner on. The second one he rips across. Might as well have been a clean winner. I can get burned on this court a lot if I pull the trig other the wrong ball, and it ends up that he is so fast and good had to take more risk with my rally balls to just not be on defense all the time.

Was this the best win of your career?

Fritz: I think I take almost more pride in this one, because I feel like I — start to finish like I won it and I earned it. I didn’t really win any of the — I think a lot of the decisive points in the match weren’t so much off of, like, him giving it to me. I felt like I made it happen in those moments. I, yeah, just start to finish played an amazing match, and I went out and I took it.

What was the key to the victory?

Fritz: Execution is a massive part of it. The one thing that I did today that I think I’ve struggled with against some of the guys, the top guys in the past, was just really trusting it on the big points, pulling the trigger, not having that doubt of like, Oh, I don’t want to give him a freebie on a big point, so I’m going to play it a little safer, which I said I think that works against 90% of people.

But against the top guys, they’re not just going to give you those big points. I think that was one of the biggest takeaways I learned in the Wimbledon match. I had two forehands on big points in the fourth set tiebreaker that I was a little too safe on, because I didn’t want to just spray one.

I wish I could go back and just rope it. If I miss, I miss. I think I did a good job of really committing to that today. Yeah, like I said, I raised my average just rally ball speed, and on another day that could obviously just end in me leaking way too many unforced errors and giving way too many free points. That’s happened in the past in certain matchups where I kind of overplay a bit.

How did you take Alcaraz out of his comfort zone?

Fritz: I didn’t want Carlos to be able to feel like he could float balls back, because again, in faster conditions, I think I would be fine with that because I would feel like maybe I can, like, still hurt him off of the floaters, but it’s so dead and slow here. If he floats a ball back and I let it bounce, he’ll get back in the point. I’m not going to be able to put enough on that dead ball to actually, like, keep control of the point. So I felt like I didn’t really have a choice.

Then, also, I’ve been saying this for a long time. My coach as well. When I’m hitting my forehand big and I’m hitting the ball big, it’s just much easier to follow it in. You take off a couple of miles per hour on a lot of those approach shots I hit, and I’ll probably get passed or I’ll probably have a much tougher volley. So I think being really aggressive the back, hitting the ball really big just opens up more opportunities for me to actually come forward. It just felt more natural.

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