ROTHESAY INTERNATIONAL

June 29, 2024

Taylor Fritz

Devonshire Park

Press Conference

T. FRITZ/M. Purcell

6-4, 6-3

THE MODERATOR: Three times lucky, Taylor. What's the feeling like? This is like your good-luck spot, really?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I don't know what it is exactly. Obviously I like being here. I think one thing is I just, for whatever reason, always feel like I just get here and start playing well. Something about the courts, I guess, obviously work well for me.

I always feel like I'm serving so well here, which is weird, because that's something that probably shouldn't be, it's not super-dependent, I guess on the court. But, yeah, I don't know what it is. Like, it's not, I guess surprising to me that I have had success here, because I know how I feel about my game and how I'm playing when I'm here. I just feel a bit better.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Congratulations on the win. Did you know prior to playing that if you won you'd become the first three-time champion here in Eastbourne?

TAYLOR FRITZ: No, I had no idea (smiling).

Q. How does it feel?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, that's pretty cool, you know. I plan on coming back here, you know, more times as well. So I'll see if I can hopefully keep running it up.

Q. If you keep winning, maybe they'll name a court after you or the Taylor Fritz Open or something?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, that would be pretty cool if I got a court (smiling).

Q. Earlier in the week, you talked about kind of Novak Djokovic and his knee injury. He's been playing this week now. He played an exhibition I think yesterday. I think you said that you weren't surprised that he was hitting on court, that you thought his progress was going quite similar to what you had experienced. Any thoughts on his progress so far you have heard or you have seen?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, I haven't been keeping up. I saw him play an exhibition match. Yeah, that makes sense. He's past day 20. I played full on and played well day 20 in my first round.

One thing I remember about the matches I played was I wasn't even, like -- I wasn't even, like, holding back in my movement. I wasn't even, like, scared at all moving. I moved and played very well in my matches.

So I'd be interested to know if he's, you know, feeling any kind of, like, aching or soreness after playing, because that's something that I dealt with for probably, like, well into the US Open Series, honestly, which is something you kind of have to manage.

That's all this recovery from surgery really is. It's just managing the swelling and inflammation that comes from them just kind of cutting into you and then you coming back and playing before you have really given it the, I guess, recommended time of about four weeks to let it calm down.

But it's not surprising at all he's doing what he's doing.

Q. We have said you've played this event many times. You've also won it many times. That means you have gone from here to Wimbledon and you have done that transition before. How do you go about managing that and such a quick turnaround?

TAYLOR FRITZ: So I think the stigma with when you're a higher-ranked player, you want to be at the slam a bit earlier, and I think that tracks for me at most tournaments. I think Australia, I like to be there and practice before Australia. I don't really see the point of playing one of the ones before Australia.

For French Open, I'll explain a bit my logic. We play with Dunlop balls the whole clay court season, and French Open is the first tournament with the Wilson balls. So the lead-in tournaments prior have those balls, so it's actually nice. I don't mind getting some tournament matches in with those before I go to French Open, so that's why I'll play the week before that.

The week before here, as well, it's grass, it's not that physical. It's basically serving all week. And to be honest, the grass here is very similar to Wimbledon. On top of that, I have never had good results pre-Eastbourne/Wimbledon, so I don't really want to go into Wimbledon, you know, with my first- and second-round losses that I take every year in the two lead-in tournaments. I feel like it's, for me, it's great to have that confidence.

I'll take winning a title and having just the confidence in my game going into a big tournament with less time to prepare than a week of sitting there and practicing and not feeling great about the last match, last competitive match I played.

That's just -- everyone is different. That's kind of just how I look at it.

Q. You said that you haven't felt like you have played the best tennis this week. How reassuring is it for you to know that you can still win a title while sort of underperforming? Just interested to see what the next couple of days are going to look for you heading into your first-round match?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I definitely played my best match today. Today was by far the best tennis I have played.

But, I mean, it's tough to, you know, saying -- they asked me if I played the best grass court tennis of my life? No, like, I mean, it's tough to when it's, like, two of my matches were incredibly windy. It's never going to feel good. But I'm serving great, and that's, you know, that's the one thing I always say, I don't need to be playing, like, my best to win.

As long as I'm serving really well, and then I just win a couple, like, important points here and there, I'm probably gonna win a lot of my matches. I'm super happy about the fact that the most important part of my game is definitely what feels the best.