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SPORTS
Column: Taylor Fritz is on the cusp of tennis greatness. Will he continue to rise in 2023?
Taylor Fritz celebrates defeating Lorenzo Musetti during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match between Italy and USA.
Taylor Fritz celebrates defeating Lorenzo Musetti during a Davis Cup quarterfinal match between Italy and USA in Malaga, Spain, on Nov. 24.(Joan Monfort / Associated Press)
BY HELENE ELLIOTT
SPORTS COLUMNIST
FOLLOW
DEC. 26, 2022 4 AM PT
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Taylor Fritz set two ambitious objectives for 2022: finish the year in the top 10 in the men’s tennis world rankings, and win a big event.
Done and done, with a couple of added flourishes.
Fritz, who grew up in Rancho Santa Fe and now lives in Miami, started the year at No. 23 but finished No. 9 and is the top-ranked American man. In March, he won his first Masters 1000 tournament — just below the four Grand Slams in significance — by ending a hobbled Rafael Nadal’s 20-match winning streak at the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, even though an injured ankle nearly forced Fritz to withdraw before the final.
Fritz, 25, also made his deepest push in a Slam by reaching the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, where he lost to Nadal in five sets. Fritz won titles on grass at Eastbourne, England, on hardcourts at Tokyo, and qualified for the Assn. of Tennis Professionals year-end event, reaching the semifinals. Most recently, he earned a Davis Cup win over Lorenzo Musetti in November, defeated former world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in a strong field at the Diriyah Cup in an exhibition in Saudi Arabia earlier this month, and played another exhibition in Hong Kong.
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“I would say this year worked great for me. I hit all the goals that I set out to achieve,” Fritz said while visiting southern California to train in Carson. “I can be greedy and say I wanted it to be even better, but I really can’t complain with achieving a lot of the things I set out to do this year.”
Progress has sometimes come slowly for Fritz, who has long been considered a member of the “next generation” that on some distant day will succeed Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Roger Federer as the sport’s kings.
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Federer has retired but Nadal, with a men’s-record 22 Slam singles titles, and Djokovic, with 21, aren’t conceding center stage or center court. Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, 19, jumped the succession line to win the U.S. Open and become No. 1, the youngest man to earn that distinction since rankings began in 1973. Third-ranked Casper Ruud (23), No. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas (24), and No. 6 Felix Auger-Aliassime (22) also are younger than Fritz, but there’s room for him up there, too.
“I’ve always felt very strongly that he’s a top-10 player, so I’m not shocked at all. I guess I would say I was a little bit surprised with all the adversity that he’s dealt with this year that he was able to do it this year,” Paul Annacone, who coaches Fritz along with Michael Russell, said of the ankle injury and stress fracture that slowed Fritz and disrupted his training.
“To me, the biggest thing is that now his average level is much better, and I think people don’t understand that. A lot of players, that’s where they struggle. They strive to play perfect tennis. And although Taylor is a perfectionist, what he’s learned to do is accept that he’s not going to be perfect every day and no matter what’s there, he will not relent in terms of trying to problem-solve and trying to compete his way into positions where he can be successful. That’s what he’s done this year.”