Taylor Fritz downs Karatsev in Stuttgart

Taylor Fritz is back on grass and he made areally solid winning start against Aslan Karatsev 7-6(3) 6-3 booking the quarter-final of the event.

Fritz has always been a pretty good player on the grass having won two trophies on it. He was also quite close to making the Wimbledon semi-final last year when an injured Nadal beat him in a dramatic match. He was quite excited before the grass season this year and it's quite clear why that is the case.

He's really good on the surface, it works with his playstyle and he made a good start booking a quarter-final in Stuttgart with a solid win over Karatsev. The opening set finished in a tiebreak which is rather common for grass even though we saw a break point. Karatsev had it but Fritz managed to save it thanks to a really strong serving performance in the first set that included 8 aces. The American would win the set 7-3 in the tiebreak after that.

The second set came a bit easier for the American as he was able to finally create a break chance and use the second one. Karatsev once again had a break point but couldn't get it done once more. The Russian was pretty strong for the most part losing only six points behind his first serve but he didn't do it at a high enough clip to take advantage of that. Fritz was really good as well as he had 14 aces but also 7 double faults after he rushed a bit.

The American served at a higher percentage than Karatsev so that helped him get it done in two sets as he lost only 7 points behind his first serve. He did play the crucial rallies better which is generally something that he does very well.