Cameron Spencer\/Getty Images<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/aside>\nWhy Taylor Fritz will win<\/h2>\n
Could Sunday's victory over Tsitsipas have opened a new level of confidence for Fritz, the only American still on the court? Prior to this competition, he was 0-10 in Slam matches against top-10 ranked opponents. He has finally overcome this obstacle, and the monkey may no longer be on his back.<\/p>\n
Even though Djokovic was successful in his fourth round match against Mannarino, he was not completely invincible in this tournament. In fact, for the first time since 2018, he lost sets in both of his opening matches of a Grand Slam campaign. The Serbian star also confirmed he was battling a virus this fortnight in Melbourne, and it doesn't appear he has completely overcome it.<\/p>\n
Much of this will be more like 'why Djokovic might lose' than 'why Fritz will win', but the world number 12 will need every little advantage he can get if he wants to pull off an upset.<\/p>\n
As mentioned, Fritz was easily beaten in his last match against Djokovic in that same quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows, but it wasn't like he didn't create opportunities for himself. Fritz created 12 break chances. The problem? He only converted two.<\/p>\n
Fritz also struggled with his serve that day. Only 55% of his first serves were hit in play, which should be an area of \u200b\u200bconsiderable improvement this time around. In his four matches in Melbourne, Fritz is hitting 66% of his first serves and has yet to drop below 64% in any match.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I have a lot more level to bring than against him before,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cI think the conditions here are definitely better than at the US Open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fritz also enjoys the rare advantage of facing Djokovic in the second week of a major tournament and being the fresher player. In four matches, Djokovic has spent 11 hours and 24 minutes on court, while Fritz has 10 hours and 55 minutes. This may not seem like much, but then again, any slight advantage is something against the best player on the planet.<\/p>\n
This is going to be a monumental challenge for Fritz, but he's certainly in good shape. Perhaps the shape of his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played very well from start to finish,\u201d Fritz said after his victory against Tsitsipas. “I'm super happy with how I finished it. The last three plays of the match, I really, really turned it on, almost like I was in a trance and everything. I felt like I knew exactly what shot to hit, the \u201cright decision to make on every ball. It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve had that feeling, so it gives me a lot of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
What's going to happen ?<\/h2>\n
It's hard to see Fritz finally turning things around against Djokovic in the tournament that Djokovic has simply owned throughout his career. Expect a close first two sets before Djokovic runs away with the match in the third.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australian Open: Novak Djokovic vs. Taylor Fritz — Can Fritz find a way to win?\u060c Jake Michaels, ESPN senior writerJanuary 22, 2024, 1:40 p.m. Close Jake Michaels is a Melbourne-based sports writer who covers everything from Australian Rules to Formula 1, basketball to boxing. He has been with ESPN for 10 years and works as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21233,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1005,5877,115,9594,5876,64,3080,10],"class_list":["post-21232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","tag-australian","tag-djokovic","tag-find","tag-fritz","tag-novak","tag-open","tag-taylor","tag-win"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21234,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21232\/revisions\/21234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wikidollar.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}