Les débuts de Taylor Fritz au Masters 1000 de Cincinnati, face à son compatriote Alex Michelsen, ont été tout sauf tranquilles.
Le score final, 6-3, 6-4, ne reflète pas vraiment la physionomie de la rencontre. Tête de série n°6, l’Américain a connu plusieurs moments agités sur le court, notamment dès les premiers échanges du match.
Le joueur de San Diego a ainsi jeté sa raquette au sol avant de la détruire à l’issue du premier jeu, perdu sur son engagement. Lors de l’interview accordée sur le court aux équipes de l’ATP Tour, pour Tennis TV, l’Américain a expliqué ce qui avait provoqué sa colère : "If I can't serve, my serve stops being one of my best weapons. I came out on the side where the wind was helping me, I clearly should have held the serve, and I only scored a first, on which he responded with a winner. Then I double-faulted and had to play the rest of the points with the second one. It frustrated me a lot and it all blew up in the first game," a-t-il révélé.
Fritz a rapidement réagi
Cette explosion de colère a toutefois permis à Fritz de repartir de l’avant. Il a immédiatement su corriger les erreurs commises : "Sometimes you just have to explode and let off steam, this helped me to move forward. I think that, if I had tried to keep everything inside, maybe I wouldn't have been able to turn the situation around so quickly".
Pour l’Américain, un adversaire particulier devra être pris en compte dans ce tournoi disputé dans l’Ohio : le vent. "At times it was very strong, and it wasn't a constant wind that you could adapt to. There were bursts, so sometimes you didn't know how much he would deflect the ball. Sometimes I just hit her and she came out, other times I hit her hard and she didn't come out the same way. It was really hard to serve. I think this was reflected in the service statistics of both during the first set.
Towards the end the conditions were much more manageable, which was good. Once I got the break lead in the second, I really wanted the wind to calm down so I could just focus on holding the serve. It was a very tough match," a conclu Taylor Fritz.