Rennae Stubbs believes Taylor Fritz needs emulate Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner in this area to win a Grand Slam title

After making it to the US Open final, Taylor Fritz is one step away from finally winning his maiden Grand Slam title, according to former player Rennae Stubbs.

Fritz had an exceptional second half of the season this year, reaching his first Major final at the 2024 US Open. Although the American fell to Jannik Sinner in straight sets, this spurred Fritz on to play some of his best tennis for the rest of the season. The California native would qualify for the year-ending ATP Finals, where he would again fall to the World No.1 in the final.

On the latest episode of The Rennae Stubbs Tennis Podcast, the former coach of Serena Williams spoke on how Fritz could implement coming to the net more often to this game. Stubbs said this strategy appears to benefit the likes of Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who both won multiple Grand Slam titles this season.

"It will be interesting to see who steps up," began Stubbs. "I have my thoughts on Taylor Fritz. I do believe he can win a major but I feel like his net game has to improve significantly because of the fact when he hits one, two, three great shots in a rally like Sinner or Alcaraz, they are willing to go I have got the guy on a dead run, I am going to go in and finish the point at the net and they are super confident with their volleys.
"I give Darren a lot of credit for helping Sinner because I know his improvement in volleys has been outstanding in the last 12 months and I think that is actually the difference maker in his tennis.
“As somebody who could volley very well, if I had those ground strokes and I saw an opportunity to run in, I would run in every single time and I think Carlos and Jannik have that perception now like it’s time for me to go in, it’s time to finish this point off, I can’t play five more shots like this.

“I don’t feel like Taylor is comfortable at all in any way going forward. He had one great volley against Zverev which helped him win the match when he was down 0-40 at 2-2 in the third. He was almost halfway in the court and had to go in. He ended up hitting a very scary volley for him, a basic volley for someone like me, but I thought if you could just do that more and more you would win a lot more matches.
“I feel like it’s the one area that stops him being a possible grand slam contender. I do feel like he can do it but that is where Alcaraz and Sinner differentiate themselves from the other guys. If Taylor is to make that next step, I think he has to improve that area, because I think he is the only one who can disrupt those two at grand slams."