Fritz hails Pegula’s hardcourt triumphs and Djokovic’s Grand Slam dominance

Taylor Fritz stated that he has been impressed by Jessica Pegula for her quick adaptation to hardcourts following the Olympic Games. Taylor admitted to struggling with the surface change, which has made him appreciate his colleague’s achievements even more.

Pegula secured nine consecutive victories during the hardcourt swing, winning the Canadian Open for the second consecutive year and reaching the Cincinnati Open final, where she fell to Aryna Sabalenka. She is only the 4th woman to reach consecutive finals in Canada and Cincinnati.

“I mean, I think it’s amazing how well she’s doing kind of just coming from the Olympics. I think it helps a bit she had a couple of, probably a couple extra days to be in Toronto to get acclimated than we did, because we were there on the last day, had to stay an extra day and leave,” Fritz said in New York.

“It’s amazing how well she’s doing, because she’s literally the only person that played the Olympics that, like, is having, I guess, good results,” Fritz added. “Like, anyone else that’s had good results that did the Olympics, they were out on one of the first days and they actually had some time to get ready for Montreal.”

“It’s been very tough as far as preparation goes just coming from the Olympics and then playing Montreal, Cincinnati. Especially with how fast both tournaments felt, just coming from the clay was not ideal.”

Fritz also praised Novak Djokovic following his gold medal win: “It’s crazy to win that many, you know, and be that consistently just good,” Fritz said. “Like your just baseline average level just has to be so much better than everyone else’s.”

“You know, it speaks to how much better someone is than everyone else,” he commented about the Serbian and his 24 Grand Slam titles. “Because there are so many people just trying to get that one, trying to get one or two, a couple. It’s amazing, and obviously the discipline throughout the year is to never be satisfied and always want more is also just extremely impressive in itself.”

Fritz has found consistency in Grand Slams since his last appearance at Flushing Meadows. In 2023, he reached the quarter-finals at the US Open, and this year he achieved the same at the Australian Open and Wimbledon, although he has yet to break the barrier of the last-8: “It was my first slam, I guess, quarterfinal here. I mean, it’s just a good feeling,” Fritz said.

“I think last year I was coming in here, just felt like I just needed a result at a slam, because the slam results were just really poor last year. So I felt like I needed a good result. This year, the slam results have been pretty solid. I feel like I’ve been performing well at the slams, playing three-out-of-five sets.”

On the other hand, Fritz commented in the press conference that he is not concerned if any of his matches finish late, as has been the case in recent years with some players. “I don’t think I’ve ever played one here that’s gone that late,” Fritz commented.

“I’d say the positive thing about it happening here is you’re always going to have the next day off. I think it’s probably a more pressing issue at a lot of other tournaments where that happens and you have to come back and play the next day. I think that’s pretty crazy. I think you can get away with it a bit more at a slam when you have the next day off, to be honest.

“But sometimes, I mean, sometimes it can be helped, they can schedule differently, and then sometimes it can’t be helped. You have those days sometimes where it’s just the women play long three-setters, the men play long five-setters, they stack and stack and stack on a court. In situations like that sometimes there’s not much that can be done.”