Life of players that rely on big first serves can get difficult when the serve is not working and that's exactly what Taylor Fritz experienced in Acapulco.
In the quarterfinals of the 2023 Mexican Open, the tall American took on his good friend and second highest-ranked US player, Frances Tiafoe. Despite hitting only 50% of his first serves in, Fritz won 66% of points after his second serve and saved all four break points that he saved.
After an hour and 36 minutes, Fritz won the match 6-3, 6-4 and afterwards, he admitted that he's really proud on how he handled himself despite things not going his way.
"I'm happy with how I played the big points. It's really easy to get frustrated with myself when I'm missing every first serve. It's really easy to get down on myself for that, and I kind of just fought it out, accepted that I'm going to have to play and grind out all these points and I wasn't going to be getting the amount of free points that I'm used to getting. I'm pretty proud of how I competed through a lot of those long games on my serve."
Up next, he will be taking on yet another American, this time the third highest-ranked US player, Tommy Paul. The two know each other very well and met plenty of times before with Fritz winning the majority of matches. Predicting the matchup, he said:
"I'd say it's similar to how I would play Frances. He's one of my close friends, we both know each other's game really well. Tommy's been playing well. It's been a while since we've played each other and it's going to be a good match."
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