Taylor Fritz says his “normal level” has gone way up in 2022. Are Masters 1000 finals going to be his new norm?

INTERVIEW: Catching up with Taylor Fritz after his semifinal win

How does a player handle himself when he’s trying to close out a win over a higher-ranked player in the semifinals of a big tournament, and he finds himself serving at 3-3, 30-30 in the second set? The answer to that question will give you a pretty good idea of how far he’ll go on the ATP tour. Any player who can take that point in hand and dominate it on his terms is going to win a lot of matches in the pros.

Taylor Fritz faced that scenario in his semifinal against Andrey Rublev in Indian Wells on Saturday. The 20th-ranked American had outplayed the seventh-ranked Russian for a set and a half, and outpowered an opponent who is normally the hardest hitter on the court. Fritz had used his serve well. He had taken Rublev’s best punches from the baseline, and punched back harder. He had blown a 5-2 lead in the first set, and won it anyway. He had kept up the pressure in the second set—but he had also watched as Rublev, who was on a two-tournament win streak, gradually found his range.

Now Fritz faced what felt like a must-win point at 3-3, 30-30; the match seemed poised to swing in either direction at that moment. So Fritz made it swing his way. He took control of the rally with his forehand, and increased the pace and pressure with each swing until the point was his. Fritz held serve, and 10 minutes later broke Rublev to clinch a 7-5, 6-4 win and a trip to his first Masters 1000 final.

“It was my best match of the tournament,” Fritz said. “I tried to take it to him and impose my game and it worked.

“I always feel like I play really good tennis when I play against him. I hit, I don't know, well off of his ball. It’s a lot of big hitting back and forth."

Fritz was admittedly fortunate at times. At 4-4 in the second set, Rublev missed an open backhand pass at break point, which would have given him a chance to serve for the second set. In the final game, Rublev missed an even easier down-the-line forehand to give Fritz a match point. It also probably didn’t help Rublev’s cause that, in his anger, he banged his knee with his racquet until he broke the skin, and then hurt his hand by pounding it against his racquet strings. Rublev had played a lot of tennis over the last month, at a very stressful time, and he looked a little fried by it all on Saturday.

And he certainly felt the pressure from Fritz’s game.

“It’s tough to play when one player, he have both sides, more or less solid, both sides aggressive, so you need to try to raise your level as well because if you just push the ball, he will hit winners,” Rublev said.

The last time Fritz played and beat Rublev was in Paris-Bercy, in the fall of 2021. The win put Fritz into the Top 20 and made him, for the moment, the top-ranked American man. When he was congratulated on that achievement, Fritz laughed a little sarcastically and said that once upon a time, U.S. tennis fans expected their top-ranked male players to be a good deal higher than No. 20. It seemed clear then that Fritz wasn’t going to be satisfied with anything other reaching the Top 10, and challenging for major and Masters titles; and that he hadn’t come close to accomplishing what he hoped to accomplish.

Five months later, Fritz has taken another step upward, and accomplished something new. A junior rival of Rublev’s, Fritz now seems destined to join him in the Next Gen’s top tier, and possibly in the ATP’s Top 10, by the end of the season. The important thing for Fritz is that, even when he’s not at his best, he’s better than he was a year ago. His standard has been raised.

“My level, my average level, has definitely gone up,” he said. “I think that’s what defines a lot of us as players, is how we do when we're just playing our normal level.”

Masters 1000 finals may be the new norm soon for Taylor Fritz.