US OPEN

August 23, 2024

Taylor Fritz

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Taylor, welcome.

TAYLOR FRITZ: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Your thoughts on the Open this year for yourself.

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, obviously really excited to be here. It's, like, the biggest week for the U.S., the U.S. players. Always extra, not only is it a slam, always extra important just for the Americans.

Practicing well, feeling good, hoping to have a big week.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. Jess was in here before, and she was saying that she was talking to Marcos who said that his theory was that Jess was doing better because she didn't stay in the Village at the Olympics. You kept saying we're grinding in the Village. How have you felt since then? Any thoughts on maybe you should have gone with Jess to the hotel?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, I think it's amazing how well she's doing kind of just coming from the Olympics. I think it helps a bit she had a couple of, probably a couple extra days to be in Toronto to get acclimated than we did, because we were there on the last day, had to stay an extra day and leave.

No, it's amazing how well she's doing, because she's literally the only person that played the Olympics that, like, is having, I guess, good results. Like, anyone else that's had good results that did the Olympics, they were out on one of the first days and they actually had some time to get ready for Montreal.

Yeah, it's been very tough as far as preparation goes just coming from the Olympics and then playing Montreal, Cincinnati. Especially with how fast both tournaments felt, just coming from the clay was not ideal.

Q. You made your first slam quarterfinal here at the US Open a year ago. Then you had two slam quarterfinals since then. I'm curious what confidence did that give you last year at this event for then this year?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, it was my first slam, I guess, quarterfinal here. I mean, it's just a good feeling. I think last year I was coming in here, just felt like I just needed a result at a slam, because the slam results were just really poor last year. So I felt like I needed a good result. This year, the slam results have been pretty solid. I feel like I've been performing well at the slams, playing three-out-of-five sets.

I'm feeling good, I'm feeling, I guess, pretty confident about just, I guess, I don't know, playing in the big tournaments right now.

Q. Taylor, you're coming off the Olympics, you go from here to the Laver Cup, so two team competitions sandwiched with the US Open in between. How valuable are these team events for you in such an individual sport?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I personally just enjoy it a lot, because I love being around the team, I love being around all the guys at Laver Cup. I think it's a lot of fun. It's just something that kind of like breaks up the year, and always something that I just feel like I look forward to and have a lot of fun at. It's something different that we don't get to experience that often.

Q. Your thoughts on some of the night matches that tend to finish very late at the US Open, 2:00 a.m., 2:30 a.m. Would you do anything to change that from happening at majors? What was your experience?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I don't think I've ever played one here that's gone that late. I'd say the positive thing about it happening here is you're always going to have the next day off. I think it's probably a more pressing issue at a lot of other tournaments where that happens and you have to come back and play the next day. I think that's pretty crazy. I think you can get away with it a bit more at a slam when you have the next day off, to be honest.

But sometimes, I mean, sometimes it can be helped, they can schedule differently, and then sometimes it can't be helped. You have those days sometimes where it's just the women play long three-setters, the men play long five-setters, they stack and stack and stack on a court. In situations like that sometimes there's not much that can be done.

Q. Taylor, two completely unrelated things. You, like most tennis players, know how difficult it is to try to win one Grand Slam title. What enters your mind? What do you think about when you picture the No. 25 that Djokovic is now trying to get to?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, it's crazy to win that many, you know, and be that consistently just good. Like your just baseline average level just has to be so much better than everyone else's. You know, it speaks to how much better someone is than everyone else (smiling). Because there are so many people just trying to get that one, trying to get one or two, a couple.

Yeah, it's amazing, and obviously the discipline throughout the year is to never be satisfied and always want more is also just extremely impressive in itself.

Q. I have a colleague working on a story looking at pickleball and its increasing popularity. Do you think tennis needs to be worried at all about the explosion of the popularity of pickleball?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Not really. I mean, I think there are some people in the tennis world that are just absolute pickleball haters, and that's fine. But for me, like, I don't really have an issue with pickleball. I like playing sometimes. It's fine. I don't see any reason why both of them can't exist (smiling).

Q. You obviously have been the best Southern California player for a while, but Southern Californians are doing really well these days. Alex is having a real good season. Brandon, a strong comeback. Learner is coming on. Svajda from La Jolla, he's doing great. Can you talk about those guys and give us something about the culture of tennis in Southern Cal.

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I mean, it's impressive we have so many guys and especially just me, myself, Zach, and Brandon, that's just San Diego, as well. It's interesting, but it's obviously great weather for tennis.

It's been great to see how, you know, good these guys I've known since they were much younger, because obviously I am the oldest by a bit of all those guys, so I've seen them come up as like 15, 16, 17, and always knew hitting with them when they were younger that these guys could play and these guys were good.

So yeah, it's great to have just a lot of guys kind of repping for SoCal.

Q. Can you talk about the vibe of Southern California tennis. You must have heard quite a bit about it when you were growing up, but when you go around, just the feeling.

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I mean, I feel like everyone, I mean, everyone kind of knows that it's one of the stronger sections, I guess, in juniors. I feel like I was always pretty proud of my Southern California ranking, even though it's such a small section of the whole country. You felt like it was one of the toughest sections I guess along with Florida and stuff like that.

Like I said, it's great weather. A lot of tournaments I'd drive up to, parents would drive me up to LA quite a bit to play, and some tournaments in San Diego too.

But yeah, I mean, it's one of the strongest junior sections in tennis.

Q. What are your thoughts about the Jannik Sinner matter?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, it's tough to say. You know, everyone is going to have, I guess, their own -- everyone is going to have their own opinion, but it's pretty irrelevant at the end of the day, because the truth of the matter is always going to be between him and his team. You know, I trust that whoever, like, the whole investigative process was done properly.

I think the only thing I will say is I think there's a lot of people that get suspended and can't play for a while because they either missed their tests, like the random testing -- which, by the way, whatever someone might tell you, like, it's not that hard to miss a test or two.

So people get banned off missing three of those. It's kind of hard to miss a third one. You should probably lock it down once you get two strikes. But there's crazy situations where that happens.

I think a lot of people get banned for unfortunate reasons. I guess in this ruling they found that it's different and there's no ban, and I trust that he wasn't, you know, at fault or purposely doing anything. I just think that it should be consistent across the board with bans and who gets banned, who doesn't get banned, who gets suspended, who doesn't get suspended.