Taylor Fritz speaks with a low and slow American drawl that belies his powerful game on-court.
The 27-year-old has been a talking point in the lead-up to the Australian Open, with pundits asking if he’s the best of the rest yet to win a Grand Slam.
Fritz enters the first major of the season on the back of a title triumph alongside Coco Gauff at the United Cup and a career-high world No.4 ranking. His results last year, including a win over world No.2 Alexander Zverev at the Laver Cup, and a semifinal berth against Novak Djokovic at the Shanghai Masters, point to promise that hasn’t gone to his head.
MORE: Australian Open 2025 men's singles draw
“I don’t feel like it’s much different, other than where my ranking is at,” Fritz said.
“It feels the same and I’m approaching it the same as I have other Slams. Last year I was happy with all my Slam results. I want to treat it the same way.
“The worst thing I can do is be looking super far ahead in the draw and be looking at, like, I’m a top four seed, and put this pressure on myself. It’s the same mentality that I always have. I take it one match at a time.”
Fritz isn’t the showman 24-time Grand Slam champion Djokovic is on and off the court, or an overtly commercially savvy operator like Nick Kyrgios. His coach Michael Russell mentions sponsor Chipotle when talking about diet, but it seems genuine, not contrived.
“He eats quite a bit of Chipotle when he can,” Russell tells AusOpen.com.
“His diet has gotten better. It could always be better. But he’s doing a better job of getting good complex carbohydrates, energy sources, protein, nutrients, creatine - there’s a good science behind that.”
You get the sense listening to Fritz, and speaking with Russell, that he is building toward something, not yet arrived. Talking to his camp, external hype aside, the immediate focus seems to be on implementing small improvements.
“If you don’t know Taylor, he’s pretty introverted, but once he gets to know you, and depending on what he’s talking about, he’s pretty communicative and expresses his opinions, he’s pretty transparent,” Russell says.
“He’s respectful, which for me is super important, as the coach, because you always want the relationship and the synergy to be reciprocal.
“He respects what I say, and he absorbs a lot of information, and we have really good dialogue back and forth, and communication. There’s never a lot of unanswered questions between us, which is a healthy relationship.”
A stretch of hot-form and games against greats like Djokovic last season gave Fritz an idea of “common themes” from his game that he could work on.
“When it comes to analyzing those matches, figuring out what things I need to get better at, where maybe I’m losing control of points, things I can be doing better, I’m doing all that stuff during the matches, and then as soon as the matches are over, I’m putting down notes of certain things I need to get better at,” Fritz says.
“Sometimes there’s matches you play and shots you miss where it’s just, like, that shouldn’t have happened, and I know I can do better. And then there’s certain things where it’s like this shot, I need to put time into it, focus on it and get it better.”
Laid-back seems to be a theme for some of the Americans at Melbourne Park. Talk of shots or match analysis isn’t at the forefront of Russell’s mind. His emphasis is on the importance of time management when discussing Fritz’s tournament campaign.
“He’s one of the best competitors but we also make sure that when we’re preparing for tournaments, and preparing for the big events, there are time management strategies where he is doing some fun stuff and able to decompress,” Russell says.
“He’s a big gamer, he loves to game, so if he can have a few hours to game, and he loves going on social media as well, not tennis social media, his private social media. He has a few friends down here, so just being able to have a good time and relax and not have to think about the tennis and different expectations.”
That’s not to say, however, that Fritz is not motivated ahead of his first-round clash against compatriot Jenson Brooksby, and the tournament at large.
He’s unaware of Stats Perform data that shows he’s played the most five-set matches of any player at Grand Slams since the start of 2020 and is quick to say that is not the aim at the Australian Open. “I don’t feel like I’ve played a ton of five-setters,” Fritz says.
“Hopefully I’m not going to play early five-setters because then you’re playing catch up the whole tournament, with the toll you’re putting on your body.”
Yet, if that’s what it takes, Fritz, in an indication of his outlook, says he’s up to it.
“If I’m losing, I’m always down to try and get it done in five sets. Hopefully, I’m not going to be having an insane amount of court time,” he says.