American Taylor Fritz had his first taste of facing world number one Carlos Alcaraz in a quarterfinal loss at the Miami Open on Thursday, and said it was a tougher experience than facing one of the sport’s former ‘Big Three’.
The strong Alcaraz dominated from the start, breaking 10th-placed Fritz at the start of each set as he won 6-4, 6-2 in 78 minutes.
When asked how his first appearance against the Spaniard was compared to his first matches against Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic, who have since retired, Fritz did not hide his opinion.
“Oh, I definitely felt like I had more breathing room against these guys than I did in that match,” he said.
“I think it’s different styles of play. Novak will have those long rallies but he’ll slowly throw you out of position and overwhelm you. I still feel like I can stay in those rallies for a long time and get more chances to attack” , he said.
“I think I would go back to the first few games of the game. He only hit winners with a lot of shots, shots that people don’t usually hurt me with.
“I just felt that he was more attacking and put a lot more pressure on me,” he said.
Fritz believes Alcaraz is ahead of multiple Grand Slam winners Federer, Nadal and Djokovic in their late teens.
“It’s not even what I saw today. It’s what I’ve been seeing for a while. I said it a year ago when I saw him play because he’s so young, he just has all the tools “, he said.
“He can get to the net, he can dropshot you, he can praise you, he’s incredibly fast, he’s got all the power, his forehand is good, his backhand is good,” he said.
“It’s very rare to see someone who’s so young in their game and doesn’t really have something to work on that much,” he said.
“He has tons of different ways of playing and can incorporate tons of different game plans to play against different players because he has so many tools to win a match.
“I think that’s something I wouldn’t say any of these guys had at such a young age. I think there are always things that people need to improve on,” he said.
Alcaraz began his meteoric rise last year with victory in Miami ahead of his maiden Grand Slam win at the US Open.
The Spaniard is now looking to complete the ‘Sunshine Double’ following his win at Indian Wells earlier this month.
Fritz certainly expects plenty more wins for the 19-year-old who he feels is already the complete package and admitted he just couldn’t cope with the start of the game.
“I had the feeling that the level of the first three games was absolutely unbearable. He was hitting clean winners from 110 mph second serves that I slammed into his body. I step up and crush backhand crosses, and he’s that’s where the open stance backhand line winners go from,” he said.
“It wasn’t the level for the rest of the game. I was able to settle in a lot more and he didn’t do that for the whole game. But he obviously has that level and for those first few games, it.” was pretty overwhelming”.
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Source : sports.yahoo.com