Teenage sensation Taylor Fritz has defeated Dustin Brown 6-3, 6-4, to claim his second consecutive Challenger title at the ATP Fairfield Challenger.
The 17-year-old defeated four of the six highest ranked players to claim the title in Fairfield. In the second round, he stunned top seed Tim Smyczek followed by Blaz Kavcic (6), Blaz Rola (4) and Brown (3) in the final. Impressively Fritz didn’t drop a set throughout the tournament as he brushed aside players ranked over 200 places higher than him.
The title in Fairfield follows his success at the Sacramento Challenger, a $100,000 event. Fritz defeated another American teenager, Jared Donaldson, to claim the title.
Following his second Challenger title, Fritz spoke about how his form in Fairfield compared to Sacremento.
“In Sacramento I was off in some service games. This week I served really well and played great tennis all around. It’s surprising because this week the scorelines would suggest that it was much easier for me. But the draw was much tougher. I played a seed every round besides the first round and that just shows how much better I played”. ATP World Tour quoted him saying.
In the lead up to his duo of Challenger triumphs, Fritz achieved the biggest result in his junior career. The junior world No.1 defeated Tommy Paul to claim the US Open boys title.
Fritz is now the seventh active player to win multiple Challenger titles under the age of 18, ninth in history. The six active players that proceed Fritz are Richard Gasquet, Juan Martin Del Potro, Novak Djokovic, Tomas Berdych, Rafael Nadal and Bernard Tomic.
Due to his recent results Fritz has risen 432 places up the rankings to 232 in the world. He is now the third highest player aged under 18 after Andrey Rublev (179) and Francis Tiafoe (228).
This year Fritz has played 37 matches on the junior circuit, winning 32 of them. In addition to his US Open title, Friz also won the Easter Bowl Championships in Indian Wells and reached the final of the French Open Boys competition.
