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| 18 year old Kid Cali
He has startling good looks and a game to match his 6'4" frame. And he is exactly what USA tennis fans have spent the past 13 years pining for. No offense to recent Grand Slam last men standing Tim Smyczek, Dennis Kudla and the affable John Isner, but 18 year old sensation Taylor Fritz is the goods; he knows it, everyone around him knows it, and after today's performance against the GOAT, Roger Federer knows it. This kid spent an hour demonstrating to Stuttgart's packed house his simple power repertoire: monster serve and flat, deep groundies.
"It was difficult, I thought Taylor played a really good match," said Federer, Lord of the Lawns. "He seems to like this surface, he's got a nice serve. He stays on the baseline, takes the ball early. If I didn't feel so good, I was going to struggle." To be honest, Roger did struggle. In his out of breath post match interview, Roger conceded that he was indeed "...lucky today to come through." After dropping the second set to Fritz, the sport's ultimate ambassador repeatedly slapped the ball around the SRO stadium between points, narrowly avoiding a warning and dodging a break point in mid set. The young American had actually managed to make Federer downright grumpy. That is until the kid tightened up in the penultimate game, dropping his serve and letting the two-day match slip away to Fed: 6-4, 5-7, 6-4.
"No matter who it is, it's always disappointing to take a loss, especially when you come close and you have chances," said the ATP's inevitable 2016 Newcomer of the Year. "I didn't make a lot of first serves in the third set when I was broken, my ground strokes didn't help me out too much either that game. But overall I played great, it's a great result. If you told me (before) that I was going to take a set off of Federer. I would have been pretty happy."
This past month Fritz has marched through extreme life experiences nine time-zones from his Southern California home, episodes that would have blown the minds of most American teens, both on the court and off. In Stuttgart, not only did Fritz face down Federer in singles, but he teamed up with Juan Martin del Potro in a doubles match. It just so happened that these are the same two guys he covertly live-streamed in a computer science class a decade ago during their US Open Final. But it was Taylor's performance in downtown Paris that will be the ultimate life changer. He tweeted a picture of himself in front of the Eiffel Tower, down on one knee, in front of his puppy love Raquel Pedraza. He proposed, and she accepted. "Sometimes when you know, you just know." The Tennis Channel gang at Roland Garros may have been guilty of tittering, but if you hear this kid out, you realize he is deadly serious.
Federer knows true talent when he sees it. He knows it from being pushed around for a couple of days by a teenager that probably reminds him of himself. "Taylor's a next generation player, " said Federer. "He has a wonderful future ahead of himself."
Was there any consolation for the departing Fritz from Federer's sincere praise? "Of course," said the kid, failing to stifle a shy laugh. "That means a lot, coming from him. All I can do is continue to work hard and not get a big head. I just have to keep working and hopefully he'll be right."
Next stop: the Lawns of London. This lanky Cali kid with the monster serve might just be the next great Yank on grass. "I thought I liked grass. This match today reassured me that I like grass. I'd be happy serving like that the next couple of weeks." |
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| Teenage Wasteland |
