"Execution is a massive part": Taylor Fritz shares gameplan which helped him beat Carlos Alcaraz for the first time in four meetings

America’s Taylor Fritz has shared what he did differently in the match against Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, which helped him secure a memorable win on Saturday in the Laver Cup. The two team-based competition entered a decisive phase on the day when Team World stunned the star-studded Team Europe by winning all four matches.

The biggest win on the day came from Fritz, who finally managed to beat Alcaraz at the highest level. Fritz came into the match winless against the reigning world number one in three outings, but things turned on their head in the match, where the 2024 US Open runner-up was just unstoppable as he defeated the six-time Grand Slam winner in straight sets with a score of 6-3, 6-2.

Fritz spoke to the media after the match, where he shared how he managed to get the better of arguably one of the best players in the world. Fritz stated that with conditions really slow, he had to push the issue to make Alcaraz uncomfortable, which he managed to do successfully. Fritz also stated that during the contest, he did not feel like Alcaraz would ‘beat’ him to the ‘punch’.

“Yeah, I mean, I think I had a pretty clear idea of what I needed to do going out there,” said Fritz. “Just how the court is, how the condition starts really slow out there, so I felt like I had to press a little more with just my rally ball, just to up my rally ball that I'm hoping to be very consistent with, because if I didn't, I felt like he was going to beat me to the punch and hurt me, and I felt like it was going to be very hard on a service like this for me to hurt him, versus I just felt like it was going to be very easy for him to put me out of position, as opposed to me being able to put him out of position. So, I did a really good job of that, you know, going into it, I kind of just accepted that if I make errors, I make errors, but it was going to give me the best chance to win, but yeah, I mean, I did a really good job of just hitting big, doing it consistently, and kind of pulling the trigger when I got the right balls to do it on, and you know, playing the important points pretty fearlessly.”

Their most recent meeting before Saturday came in the semifinal of Wimbledon earlier this year, where Alcaraz came out on top in four sets with a score of 6-4, 5-7, 6-3, 7-6. Fritz was asked about whether that particular match helped him in getting the better of Alcaraz on the day. In response to that, Fritz admitted that it was the case and also highlighted that the semifinal was a much tighter contest than the scorecard suggested.

“I mean, the thing is, like, I definitely take a lot of confidence from the Wimbledon match because it was very tight,” said Fritz. “But at the same time, Wimbledon match, you know, I kind of threw away the first set by getting broken in the first game, and, you know, I felt like in that Wimbledon match, the set that I won, the set that I had the set points in, were two sets that I was really happy with how I played, so I obviously took a lot of confidence for that, but I also at the same time know that those conditions are way better for me in this matchup than these conditions, so I did feel like I'd have to play with a lot more risk today than I did in that Wimbledon match, you know, a very good example of kind of what I'm talking about is, if anyone wants to look at the 15-30 point of the first game, and then the first point of the second game, where I, points where I pull the trigger on a four and inside in, and I think I hit it great, and if I'm on a faster surface, I probably get some reward out of it, but then on this surface, the first one he hits a clean winner on, the second one he rips across might as well have been a clean winner, so I can get burnt on this court a lot if I pull the trigger on the wrong ball, and it ends up that, you know, he's so fast and good on the run, you know, he ends up hurting me, so I really had to take more risk with my rally balls to just not be on defence all the time.”

Fritz was then asked about how the head-to-head works in this kind of contest and how he was feeling after finally managing to get the better of Alcaraz in the fourth attempt. Fritz stated that after securing the win, it was evident that the importance of ‘execution’ against such a top player cannot be ignored, as such players never give a second chance to their opponent.

“I mean, yeah, execution is a massive part of it,” said Fritz. “You know, the one thing that I did today that I think I've struggled with against some of the guys, the top guys in the past, was just really trusting it on the big points, pulling the trigger, not having that doubt of, like, oh, I don't want to give them a freebie on a big point, so I'm going to play a little safer, which I think, I said I think that works against 90% of people, but against the top guys, they're not just going to give you those big points, so I think, you know, that was one of the biggest takeaways I learned in the Wimbledon match. I had two forehands on big points in the fourth set tiebreaker that I was a little too safe on because I didn't want to just, like, spray one, you know, and I wish I could go back and just rope it, and if I miss, I miss, and I think I did a good job of really committing to that today, and yeah, like I said, I raised my average just rally ball speed, and on another day, that could obviously just end in me leaking way too many unforced errors and giving way too many free points, and that's happened in the past in certain matchups where I kind of overplay a bit, but like I said, because of the nature of the conditions of how slow it is, I felt like, I did feel like I was forced to.”