NATIONAL BANK OPEN

August 1, 2025

Taylor Fritz

Press Conference

T. FRITZ/G. Diallo

6-4, 6-2

THE MODERATOR: Taylor, you played a very good match out there tonight. Can you just give us you your overall thoughts on how you think the match went.

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, I'm super happy with it. Especially, I guess, considering how I felt on the court two nights ago in my first match I played. I thought it was a big improvement. I felt way more comfortable, confident, like just hitting the ball, being aggressive, just striking it.

Yeah, I did well to get, be up an early break in the sets. I did well to just hold. Played really solid from the baseline as well. In the games I didn't maybe serve my best, I backed it up well from the ground, and just did a good job of not kind of letting him back in the sets.

THE MODERATOR: Questions.

Q. That 1-1 game in the second set, you coming back to break him. How big of a turning point was that, and what did you see from that game that allowed you to have success?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, I think like it wasn't anything particular about it. I was down obviously in that game, but I played some good points, put myself in a position to get it back to, once I get it back to 40-30 or deuce, then obviously it's a lot of pressure on him now. Playing a game where he was up 40-Love, it's stressful when you're up 40-Love and get back to deuce, you don't want to get broken in that situation.

So I knew that I had the pressure on him, but at the same time, if I didn't break that game I felt like it was just, you know, I was playing well, it was going to give me confidence either way, break or not, that if I didn't get it there, then I felt like I could get it another game.

Q. Do you adjust your approach at all when you know your opponent's going to have a lot of home crowd support?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I mean, just mentally, I'm ready for it. I'm not going out there thinking that the crowd's going to be supporting me or anything like that. I know that they're going to be going crazy for him.

To be honest, I thought the crowd was very mild for me playing, well, mild maybe is not right, they were just very nice for me playing, I guess, the last player in the tournament from Canada. I thought it was going to be a little bit more hostile, but I guess everyone's just so nice (laughing). So, yeah, I've dealt with a lot worse, so I'm always prepared for the worst.

Q. You played Gabe twice now in a short span, what makes him a difficult opponent to play?

TAYLOR FRITZ: His serve is very tough to return, obviously, but I think, you know, the things that I can pick out, especially from Wimbledon that I thought he did really well, he returns second serves really well, especially off his back hand. He can take it early and really press you if you're missing your first serve. From the baseline he's good, too. He can attack it with his forehand, his backhand's very solid, flat through the court, goes line with it well. He doesn't let you play a lot of defense because he'll come in and cut it off at net. He does a lot of things really well.

Q. Quite a few players have been having struggles landing returns, it seems like. Whether or not that's a conditions issue, court, ball, whatever, adjustments at the beginning of the hard court swing, all that. What's your take on that, and what adjustments have you made from DC to kind of improve that shot?

TAYLOR FRITZ: You said returns? To be honest, I feel like it's everything since being here. Yesterday was the first practice I had since being here that I actually felt like I could, like genuinely I felt like I knew where the ball was going to go off my racquet.

I've been having an incredibly hard time just putting the ball in the court. Typically when I'm missing shots I know exactly why I'm missing, I know what I did wrong. The first couple days I was here, and even in my first round match, there's balls going 10 feet long that feel exactly the same as the one that was just right before that went in.

So I just felt like in general the conditions are, it's been really hard to just play good tennis. I think there's a lot of ugly tennis. There's a lot of people double faulting, a lot of mistakes.

I think it's two things. I think these balls are for sure the hardest balls to control that we play with all year, the Wilson U.S. Opens. And they're not bad, it's just the balls that we've been playing with on tour for the last couple years consistently the most, they're just really soft and more dead. So they slow down off the bounce, they hold on your strings longer, there's just like a more soft, dead ball we play with. You play with these, they shoot off your racquet, they jump off the court faster.

And then this court's very fast compared to, I thought DC was pretty fast, this is faster coming through the court even more. It's just tough to control, for sure. Someone hits a really big, flat ball into you, it's tough to just play it back into the court.

Q. This is obviously the first time we've had a two-week event for Toronto, Montreal, and then Cincinnati. As one of the top players who has experienced the ups and downs and the pros and cons of the 12-day format, or the two-week format at the Masters, what is your take on the sustainability of this kind of model, and do you think that this is something that will ultimately benefit the top players in the long run?

TAYLOR FRITZ: There's pros and cons to it. I think the thing I can say that's like the most in support of it on my side is I do like the format of play a day, day off, play a day. I think that's what we do at slams. Obviously slams we're playing three out of five. But I do think that I don't mind that format.

I think once you get into it you're playing like a, like playing six matches in a row potentially, if you go all the way. Like, six matches every single day, I think that gets a little, like it's kind of a lot. And then straight off to the next tournament to do the same thing over again, I think that's pretty tough to do.

But at the same time it adds extra weeks, and to be honest, I think the way I see it is like if we're going to have these, this stretch of, I guess, three weeks, if we're just going to go back to how it used to be, and it's like one week each, if it's going to mean we add another tournament, then I would be against it.

But if it was going to mean that we make the 1000s one week, and it is able to lengthen the off-season, if we're able to give those extra weeks back in the end of the season, and give us, you know, instead of a four-week off-season, like a six- or seven-week off-season, then that would be massive and I would be way in favor of doing the one-week events.

But, yeah, if instead of the one-week events they're just going to add another week in there, then I would say this format's probably better.

Q. Seems like you had an easier time beating Diallo this time around versus the first time you played. And I wondered, what did you do differently, what was the difference today?

TAYLOR FRITZ: I don't think I did too much differently. I think just in general the Wimbledon match was higher level.

Like I said, it's really different conditions, way harder to just play good tennis here. I think I did a really good job from the baseline of just hitting my forehand through the court, deep, consistent. I don't think I gave him a lot of mistakes from the ground, which is, I didn't do it, I didn't do that at Wimbledon either, but I think here it's much easier to miss the ball and make mistakes. So I was solid.

It helps a lot, you know, he came out and played a loose first game, so it helps a lot. You start up a break, and I did a good job of just holding my serve and not letting him back into the set.

Q. You talked before the tournament about finding your spots on your serve and improving that. When you do find your spots on your serve, how does that just unlock your whole game, allowing you to have success?

TAYLOR FRITZ: Yeah, it loosens up everything because when I feel like I'm hitting all the spots on my serve I'm serving, like, you know, I feel like I'm serving 65 percent first serves, and the spots are very good, like, every time I make the serve I'm pretty much getting a free point or an easy first ball. Then I feel really confident about it, it just makes everything I'm doing a lot looser, because I know that, I just feel like I'm not going to get broken. I can take more cuts on balls, because if I miss it's like, whatever, I'll probably get a free point on my serve the next point.

And on their serve as well, I'll take more looks and more risks, because I have that fallback that I feel like I'm not going to get broken, I can always bail myself out with free points on the serve. So it definitely just loosens and frees up the rest of my game for me to go after it more.