Fresh off heroics at Laver Cup in San Francisco, Taylor Fritz makes winning start in Tokyo

This past weekend, Taylor Fritz was one of the biggest heroes at the Laver Cup in San Francisco, scoring wins over world No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz and world No. 3 Alexander Zverev—both in straight sets—en route to Team World’s victory over Team Europe at the star-studded event.

His victory over Alcaraz was his first career win over a No. 1, too.

And now, more than 5,000 miles away, he’s still winning.

The No. 5-ranked American made a successful start to his week in Tokyo on Thursday, defeating Canada’s Gabriel Diallo in three tough sets, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (3), in the first round of the ATP 500 event.

He’s now won 29 matches since the start of the grass-court season in June, which is the most of anyone on the men’s tour in that time.

It was also his 46th win of the year (the second-most on the men's tour) and 30th hard-court win of the year (also the second-most).

MOST WINS THIS YEAR (men, tour-level):

• 62: Carlos Alcaraz (playing later today)
• 46: Taylor Fritz
• 45: Alexander Zverev
• 44: Alex de Minaur

MOST HARD-COURT WINS THIS YEAR (men, tour-level):

• 31: Alex de Minaur
• 30: Taylor Fritz
• 29: Carlos Alcaraz (playing later today)
• 25: Felix Auger-Aliassime

Fritz had won both of his previous career meetings against Diallo, at Wimbledon and Canada earlier this year, and he made it 3-0 in Tokyo—though things could easily have gone the other way this time.

Not only did Fritz have to battle back from a set down, but after evening things up at a set apiece, he had to serve to stay in the match twice in the third set, at 4-5 and 5-6—he was actually just a few points away from losing the match serving at 4-5, 40-30 in the decider.

But the American held both times and once he got it to a tie-break he soared, opening up an early 3-0 lead, then holding all of his service points from there until grabbing one last mini-break to close the match out after just over two hours on court. At the end of the day, only three points separated the two players—Fritz finished with 95, Diallo with 92.

"It's definitely a tough turnaround," Fritz said. "I think the biggest thing for me today was the energy. It's really tough to match the energy that you have last week, with Andre [Agassi] on the bench, the team on the bench, everyone going crazy. I'm obviously a little jet lagged as well, so that comes into it. I really just had to find it and get it going.

"It was a really, really tough match to play today."

Awaiting the No. 2-seeded Fritz in the second round in Tokyo will be unseeded Portuguese Nuno Borges, a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1 winner over Japanese wild card Yosuke Watanuki in the first round.

Fritz defeated Borges in the pair's only career meeting, a 7-6 (5), 6-4 victory in the second round of Delray Beach last year.