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U.S. OPEN

September 13, 2015

Taylor Fritz

New York, NY, USA

T. FRITZ/T. Paul

6-2, 6-7, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Congratulations. How does it feel to be a Grand Slam champion?
TAYLOR FRITZ: Incredible.

Q. Is there a sense of relief a little bit, maybe? I know this was your last chance.
TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I was thinking about it. It's crazy. You know, I wanted it so bad just because I wanted to win a junior slam so bad.

I was just thinking it's not going to be easy because I have one chance to do it. When you want something so bad and there is just one last chance there is a lot of nerves, and, you know, anything can happen.

It's the perfect ending. I can't believe I actually got the perfect ending.

Q. Might also be the perfect beginning. Federer won this title 17 years ago. Could you imagine yourself, your career, going that long?
TAYLOR FRITZ: (Shrugging.) I don't know what to say to that. I just want to get out there and get going, you know, get off to a good start. I'm not expecting -- not trying to set expectations for myself, really.

I would just like to get out and do well and move up the rankings as fast as possible and hopefully have a good career. You know, I'll start setting goals for myself once I get there.

Q. What were you thinking, first of all, when you had the momentum, the rain comes, and then also 5-3, and you let that go and have to go into a third?
TAYLOR FRITZ: Well, you know, it was frustrating with the rain delay because he really was not playing that well. I had the momentum going for me.

When we went back out my serve was just off. Even the third set it wasn't, you know, how I had it going before.

That hurt me a lot. How he started playing in the tiebreaker, the second set and beginning of the third, I just thought he was unbeatable. I didn't think there was any chance.

I didn't understand what to do. I was hitting the ball as hard as I could, corner to corner to corner to get every ball back. I couldn't come up to net because he'd slice the ball in the corner an inch over the net, and it was just so -- it was so tough.

You know, luckily he started making more errors, and I think that came from me just moving him so much. You know, it was really tough for me to mentally get back into it after blowing, you know, match point on his serve where I was in the point, and then dropping my serve for the match, losing that tiebreaker, and then going down a break in the third to start.

It was so tough to come back from that. But I told myself just to keep fighting, and it would be way more upsetting if I'd ended up losing the match. I had to at least fight for it.

Q. What did you tell yourself to get back in the match?
TAYLOR FRITZ: I just told myself, reminded myself that it's the final of the US Open juniors. It's my last tournament. I had to keep fighting. You know, once I just realized how important everything, how important it was, I just couldn't let myself down.

Q. Early in the week you kind of said, Well, to keep the No. 1 ranking I might go to Mexico for the juniors and do that. Then yesterday you seemed like, well, if I won here I might not play anymore. What's today's reaction?
TAYLOR FRITZ: I'm going to have to -- I'm going to have to check on rankings, whatever, because it would be a shame to do all this and not finish 1, you know.

Hopefully this can be the end for me, because this is the perfect ending to the junior career. So hopefully this can be the last one is what I'm saying.

Q. I asked; they said it wasn't a definite.
TAYLOR FRITZ: I know it's not a definite because there are still three Grade As. You know, we'll see. Hopefully I can finish with this.

Q. You talked yesterday about those previous matches where you were up a set, up a break, and there were similarities. Did your mind go back to those matches, or...
TAYLOR FRITZ: No. Usually -- you know, it's actually very strange that it didn't. No, I didn't think of any of that, but I just knew that Tommy -- Tommy is very good at coming back. Then when he comes back, just he's so hard to beat.

He did it -- I mean, he's done it twice this tournament. He's been a set down. With Hong he was a set and 5-3 down, match point as well. He's good coming from behind. I just had to focus on the match and do whatever I could to not let him back in it.

Q. I heard you say he's impossible to beat. You know, you're probably not supposed to...
TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, but I was so upset. There was actually -- like, that's what I felt like. I felt like there was absolutely nothing I could do for some of those points. I played them so well and I thought, Wow, if he can keep doing this, I just don't see any chance of me winning, because I just couldn't put a ball away.

And I'm thinking to myself, you know, the thing I do best I think is strike the ball and hit big shots, and I could not put the ball away. How would anyone put the ball away on him.

Q. Is this even bigger because you weren't playing your best all the time and you got through?
TAYLOR FRITZ: I thought I played very well, actually. Minus the serving, minus how the serving kind of lost me when I came back after the rain delay, besides that, I thought I played very well the whole time, especially towards the end from the ground. I thought it was a very, very good match. We had a lot of long points.

I think also what contributed to that was the fact that it was dark outside. I think the ball wasn't flying through the air as fast as it would in the daytime. Both of us were having trouble putting the ball away.

Q. What was the ITF award that you got?
TAYLOR FRITZ: Just like a ball you get for winning a Grade A.

Q. When you come back to the US Open next year, ranking you'd like to be at? A goal 12 months from not now?
TAYLOR FRITZ: If I could come back to the US Open next year I'd be happy. I would like to be around -- I would like to be able to get into the qualifying off a ranking. That would be nice.

Like I said, I'm not gonna try and set too many goals for myself because I don't know how it's going to pan out over the next year transitioning into the pros.

So I'm just going to try my best to get up there, and once I know where I'm at, then I can try and set goals for myself.

Q. Do you have a physical conditioning program planned out to bulk up at all or handle the extra physical demands?
TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, of course. That's one of the things I talked most about before I turn pro, because I'm not -- my body is not strong enough to handle the constant, just, every single week against really high-level players in the pros.

So I'm taking some time off after the challengers in California just to train. And especially this title helps me a lot with that, because I don't need to go play any more junior tournaments during that time.

I'm going to take a couple months just to get -- take a couple months off and train, and hopefully from there I will get going on the circuit.

Q. When is the earliest you see yourself playing, whether junior event or a pro event?
TAYLOR FRITZ: Well, I'm going to play those challengers in Northern California coming up after this, but after that it's probably going to be a while before I play a tournament.

Q. Third set, when you were down a break, what specifically in the match did you focus on or what worked to turn it around?
TAYLOR FRITZ: I knew that I needed to be on offense, and he was controlling me a lot from the backhand. He was moving -- he was moving his backhand around really well, going line and cross. I felt like it was hurting me more than the forehand, so I tried to play more to the forehand, and then also take my backhand line more.

A lot of the times he'd get back in the point by hitting to my backhand and then just knowing I'm going to hit a backhand cross.

And I just told myself to stay aggressive and keep fighting, because every point was so close. It was really just who could pull out that like one extra shot at the end of the point, really.

Q. Do you have any plans to celebrate? Have you thought about that?
TAYLOR FRITZ: Um, no. I'm just going to probably just relax, to be honest. I might go watch that match and just relax.

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