Taylor Fritz has admitted that he feels like he belongs in the world’s top ten despite a 7-6(5) 7-6(6) defeat to Novak Djokovic at the Nitto ATP Finals.
The American was so close to defeating Djokovic and sealing a place in the biggest final of his career.
However Fritz couldn’t win the big points and let a 5-3 lead slip in the second set as Djokovic remained clutch in the big moments.
After the match the American told the Fritz about a member of the crowd that distracted him in the big moments and admitted it was a tough situation for the umpire to deal with, “I mean, now is probably not the best time for me to give a good answer for the reflection of the week because I’m extremely upset about the match, more so about the things that happen in a match that I can’t control,” Fritz told the press in Turin.
“It one of those things. It’s like what can you do? If you make a rule that you can replay a point, then the guy is just going to yell when I’m about to win a
point, then we’re going to have to replay. It’s just going to happen the reverse way.
“I can’t expect anybody to be like, Replay the point. In that situation, I can’t say that I would do that either. I can’t expect anyone to do anything differently. I don’t know. I don’t know what to say.
“I think that’s what makes it even more frustrating. It’s like, you know, I kind of got screwed and there’s nothing that really can be done about it.”
Despite the distractions from the crowd and the disappointing defeat, Fritz has a lot to be proud of with his season.
The American won his maiden Masters 1000 title in 2022 and also became a top ten player for the first time in his career.
Reflecting on the season Fritz admits he feels like he belongs in the top ten in the world, “Yeah, it’s definitely not, I guess, easy to be in the top 10, to accumulate all the points. There is, I guess, added stress to produce the consistent results that you need to stay in it,” the American admitted.
“I absolutely feel like I belong. I think that I’ve proved that I belong in the top 10 and I belong here. I just need to keep working hard. Fortunately for me I think there’s a lot of positives to take out of this year where I finished.
“I finished where I did and I missed pretty much the whole clay court season, didn’t have any training going into the beginning of the hard court season. I was dealing with injuries, and I still was able to produce a really solid year.
“I’m just excited to kind of get back to work, keep improving, next year look to cement my spot even more.”
Friz also commented on the year in general and stated that he believes that when Djokovic plays he is the best player in the world, “It’s been a crazy year. I think my takeaways are that when Novak has played, he’s been the
best player. There’s no doubt about that,” Fritz said.
“When he hasn’t played, which is a lot of the year, we’ve seen a lot of different results because when you take him out of the equation, I think everybody else playing is extremely close in level and it’s going to come down to who’s playing the best that week, what the court conditions are, how it’s playing.”
Fritz still has one more event of the year when he represents the USA in the Davis Cup in Malaga, where they face Italy in the quarter-finals.
