ROLEX SHANGHAI MASTERS

October 9, 2024

Taylor Fritz

Mixed Zone

T. FRITZ/H. Rune

6-1, 6-2

Q. Congratulations on your most dominant win, or your fastest win of the tournament, and it came against your highest-ranked opponent here, so you must be very satisfied with that result.

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I played a really good match, served well, moved well, not really anything that I can be hard on myself about in that match.

Q. Looking ahead to the quarterfinal, I mean, we haven't got the result yet, but what do you think of your two potential opponents?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, it's interesting, I haven't played Goffin in a very long time, if it is him, so that could be interesting.

Obviously, if it's Sascha, we played a lot lately. It would be the third time playing in the last four events. Yeah, we'll see, we have played a lot, and we've had a lot of close matches.

Q. Would you like it to be Sascha, given the result at the US Open?

TAYLOR FRITZ: No, I mean, if anything, I think Sascha is probably, I mean, he could be due, he could be due for one. But (laughing) that's also what I said before, I guess, the Laver Cup match as well, so we'll see.

I've won the last three, but, I mean, the Wimbledon match, was obviously down two sets, could have gone either way. The US Open match was really close, could have gone either way. You know, it's not maybe as one-sided as it would appear for someone having won versus lost three matches.

Q. Have you set any kind of goals for the rest of this season, like, say for the rankings, a top 5 could be achievable for you?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I think obviously the goal going into every season in the beginning is like I'm trying to qualify for Turin and be top 8, I think that's always like a good benchmark goal. Now that that's looking good, in a really good spot, I always want to re-evaluate my goals. Sometimes once you reach a goal I don't think it's good to get a little bit, I guess, complacent.

So, yeah, the new one that I set for myself is it would be cool to finish the year top 5. Obviously that's my career high, but I think finishing the year at that rank as a whole is a whole different thing. Being 5 in the Race, obviously, I think it's, you know, a goal that motivates me a lot to kind of finish the year strong.

Q. Obviously a long season, how are you feeling physically and mentally, I guess?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Pretty awful (smiling). Yeah, I mean, it's like the season is too long. I always thought if I got ranked higher I could play less, and I am, I am playing less tournaments, but I'm also winning a lot more matches at the big tournaments, so I'm playing probably more than ever, even though I thought it wasn't going to be like this (laughing).

Yeah, I've been dealing with injuries since the French Open that I haven't had time to get to go away, I've kind of just been playing through. That's the thing, if an injury is not completely bad enough to keep me out, then I'm just going to play, I don't want to, you know, waste months, and just slowly it gets better, and it kind of has. But, yeah, and that's not just me, there's, at this time of the year most of the guys have been going all year, everyone's dealing with something.

Q. I really enjoy watching your channel. Curious who leads a busier life in tournaments, you or Morgan?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Oh, I would say Morgan's busier. She goes out and does more stuff. I don't have much of a battery for, like, going out and being in public, doing social things, so she packs on some pretty busy days.

At tournaments I like to be very lazy. I like to just, you know, take care of my business at the courts, practice, do the physio work, take care of my body, and then just relax. I think she's probably more, I mean, I may be a little more doing more physical stuff, but I think she's being really busy.

Q. A lot of young people might think you two have fancy job, just playing tennis and doing that, but it must be a lot of work, effort and pressure, could you talk a bit about that?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I mean, she does an amazing job of kind of doing all the work that she has to do, and then also still doing a lot of the things that help me perform and do better, you know, just kind of making my life easier, making sure we're going to sleep at a certain time, getting up at a certain time. I mean, she goes down a lot of the times, and I have to kind of sometimes do some rock, paper, scissors or something, but she will go down and get the reviews from the lobby.

Q. One thing I admire is she showed respect, last year in Shanghai, I really loved the episode, because she showed the respect to different cultures, no matter where she travels.

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, it's very, I mean, it's one of, I would say it's positive and negative of our job is we travel so much. Sometimes I would like just to be home, but the positive is you get to travel and see all these different cultures, and it's very cool to kind of experience everything for a week at a time with how the calendar is. We get to go to all these cool places and, I mean, it's enjoyable to be in a lot of places that we get to go to.

Q. There's been quite a lot of discontent at the umpires in this tournament, including your teammate Frances yesterday. Just wondered if you had a view on the umpiring for this tournament?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I've got tons of opinions. I mean, I'll break it down like, let's see, I think, I mean, I think it's a good change they made originally with the clocks, now that it's automatic, because before they used to, it was up to the umpire to start the clock, and umpires would be different.

So I always had a problem, particularly with Fergus, because he would start the clock so fast. I play very quickly, and I was getting time violations called on me from him, but only from him, so I complained about that a lot. But I think it's a good change now that it's consistent, that they start it right after the point.

But I think sometimes it's like, you play a long point, you finish the point at net, that sometimes things need to be factored in where it's going to take extra time.

I think when I watched Frances's, I think the first time, the warning, that shouldn't have been called. He was, when it hit zero he was actually starting a service motion. I think that's, like, a little, I just don't think that should have been called.

The second time he stopped to cough. I also probably don't think that should have been called.

Then the third time, that's probably the only one that I think could be called, because if he's going to, like, toss the ball up to start the motion, he has to make it like kind of believable that he's going to serve. He tossed it up like there's no chance he's ever going to hit that. But that should have been the warning, I think the other two shouldn't have been called. To be honest, I think it's a little, sometimes from, if you're the umpire, you have to use a bit of your discretion.

And then, the other day, the score thing with Wawrinka and Cobolli, that's insane, that can't happen. I'm shocked that nobody noticed. I'm shocked that Stan didn't notice, that the server didn't notice in that situation, it's really insane. But yeah, you can't, messing up the score in a big match in the third set is just, that can't happen.

So, everyone's human, umpires make mistakes, but, I guess, just on these specific instances that's my thoughts.