Taylor Fritz is returning to Wimbledon with two grass-court titles under his belt, and likely brimming with confidence.
And whilst the American has been criticised for the business of his schedule, it is a system that works for him.
He crams as many matches in wherever possible, and during this, the shortest period on the tennis calendar, it kind of makes sense.
There is not a single player on the ATP tour who will go into Wimbledon with as much winning form on grass as him.
And yet, he’s understandably wary about the prospect of facing Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard in the first round.
Taylor Fritz previews his Wimbledon match vs Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard
Asked about the towering Frenchman in his pre-tournament press conference, he admitted: ’Yeah, I mean it’s not easy like him, like, you know, it could potentially just come down to a couple points, a couple shots.
‘It’s a scary match because, you know, some things are more out of your control than maybe another matchup, but historically, I feel like I’ve done pretty well against big servers and I myself feel, you know, pretty good about holding my serve and, I’m gonna go out and do my job, and that’s take care of my service games.
‘And if it happens, then I get it, like, I’m not able to break and I get like, I lose breakers, and in my opinion that can happen. Like, it is what it is, but I am gonna go out do my job and hold service.
‘It’s not by any means the easiest draw, but historically as well I think I’ve had a lot of good results when I’ve been given tough draws.’
Fritz’s early exit at Queen’s allowed Jack Draper to take the fourth seed at Wimbledon, but having seen the Brit’s draw, he might be thankful for the outcome.
Taylor Fritz talks about Wimbledon introducing electronic line calling
Later asked about his thoughts on the introduction of electronic line calling, Fritz certainly had plenty to say on this.
After all, whilst it sees tradition pushed to the wayside, ensuring that things are fair and correct is inarguably more important when so much is at stake.
He claimed: ‘Okay. I would say that’s good, to be honest.
‘I think I’d say a couple of years ago, when most tournaments were still doing regular, and we were switching more to the electronic, then I wouldn’t really care as much, but I think when we are so used now to electronic line calling every week, it’s honestly really hard to go back to having to potentially stop a point in mid-rally if a call is missed or, like, challenge stuff when we’ve you know, 95% of the year moved away from that, it gets really hard to go back and have to think about that kind of stuff.
‘It’s really nice to be playing a point and never have to worry about, like, a close call on the baseline. Should I stop the point? Should I not stop the point? Should I challenge this?
Should I not challenge this? I think it’s really nice to not have to worry about that. And like I said, I think, when we did worry about that all the time because there was no electronic line calling it wasn’t that big of a deal, but now that we always have electronic blind calling. I think it’s the random weeks that we have to make our own, like, challenges and stuff, it’s tricky ’cause we’re so de-conditioned to it.
‘So I’m happy it’s changed then.’
