Taylor Fritz will lengthy be remembered for his Indian Wells crown in 2022.
It was the primary time an American man received in Tennis Paradise since Andre Agassi 21 years earlier, and within the ultimate, Fritz topped one other of the sport’s all-time greats, Rafael Nadal.
If that isn’t sufficient, a then Twentieth-ranked Fritz beat Nadal whereas competing with an injured ankle that wanted tending to earlier than the ultimate.
Indeed, when the showpiece match began, he didn’t know if the ankle would maintain up. But it did.
Earlier within the event, Fritz snuck out a pair of third-set tiebreaks in opposition to Nadal’s mentee, Jaume Munar, and Alex de Minaur.
So no marvel Fritz — whose win was much more particular since he hails from California — was pleased to debate the profession altering week with reporters on Tuesday.
“It was an amazing week,” mentioned Fritz, who in a while Tuesday received the Eisenhower Cup for a second straight time with Elena Rybakina. “I had a lot of battles in the tournament. So many times someone kind of just gets out of some close matches, like a third-set breaker here and there, and then you just have that confidence.
“I was playing the big points really well and then you just go on and take a title,” added the 28-year-old, who went 4-0 in tiebreaks throughout that momentous 2022 version.
“I feel like I was playing really good tennis to start that year. I felt confident, I felt like I had a lot to prove back then to myself, because I wasn’t ranked as high, but I felt like my level was there, and it was, yeah, one of the best, if not the best, week of my career.”
