COMEBACK KING: TAYLOR FRITZ CLAWS FROM ONE-SET DOWN AGAINST ALEJANDRO TABILO TO SECURE PLACE IN ROUND OF 16
Indian Wells, USA
25 MINUTES AGO
Comeback King: Taylor Fritz claws from one-set down against Alejandro Tabilo to secure place in round of 16
MATCH POINT: Jack Draper conquers Jenson Brooksby in physical straight-set third round match at Indian Wells
MATCH POINT: Aryna Sabalenka dominates Lucia Bronzetti at the BNP Paribas Open
MATCH POINT: Coco Gauff enters round of 16 over Maria Sakkari with a forehand winner
MATCH POINT: Madison Keys holds off Elise Mertens at Indian Wells for 14th straight win
Indian Wells Masters: Tabilo moves into third round
Alejandro Tabilo won against Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 7-5 on Saturday evening. He’ll face American Taylor Fritz, the No 3 seed, in the next round
Chilean Alejandro Tabilo, the No 30 seed, defeated Serb Dusan Lajovic 6-3, 7-5 to advance to the third round of the Indian Wells Masters at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden on Saturday.
Tabilo, ranked No 31, will face American Taylor Fritz, the No 3 seed, next.
Lajovic, ranked No 108, won against Australian qualifier Li Tu (6-2, 6-0) in the previous round of the Indian Wells Tennis Masters.
Indian Wells Masters 1000, other second-round results (Indian Wells Tennis Garden, hard, USD 13.042.410, most recent results first):
Chile
Serbia
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Finding his game: Slow start turns into powerhouse finish for Taylor Fritz at Indian Wells
The start was remarkably slow for Taylor Fritz, even double-faulting away a set point against 30th seed Alejandro Tabilo. But once Fritz started rolling in his third-round match at the BNP Paribas Open, there was no stopping the former Indian Wells champion.
Fritz, third seed in the tournament, won 16 of the final 20 points in the second set, then raced away with the third set for a 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 victory in one hour and 54 minutes on Stadium 2 of the Indian Wells Tennis Garden. In all, Fritz won nine of the final 10 games in the match.
The win moved Fritz, the 2022 champion of the BNP Paribas Open, a step closer to the dream of a second victory at what the Southern Californian considers his hometown tournament. The victory advances Fritz into the fourth round against England’s Jack Draper, the No. 13 seed in the event and a straight-set winner over Jenson Brooksby on Monday.
Fritz said the runaway finish was just a matter of him playing better.
“I just stopped making super-random mistakes. For the first set and a half, I just, for no reason, was just missing balls. I couldn’t even imagine, I don’t know why I was missing them,” Fritz said. “But even with that, it was still a tight match, so I knew if I just cleaned it up and stopped giving away so many free points that I could probably turn it around.”
With his powerful serve and dominating forehand, Fritz played the final two sets pretty much the way the match against the 30th-seed Chilean was expected to go. What wasn’t expected was the way Fritz lost the first set, including a 3-0 start for Tabilo.
Fritz fought back in the opening set and trailed 4-5 and with a game point on his serve. But the next three points featured a Fritz double fault, a forehand by Fritz beyond the baseline and another double fault to get Tabilo the break and the set.
After that, though, the inconsistencies in Fritz’s groundstrokes began to disappear. While Fritz was hitting winners with his forehand and backhand, Tabilo continued a strategy of hitting drop shots, trying to lure Fritz into the net. That strategy didn’t always work, with not every drop shot clearing the net, Tabilo did find some points with the shots.
But the power of Fritz began to dominate the match. Fritz ended the match with 32 winners, 17 off his forehand, compared to just 17 total winners for Tabilo. Fritz also dominated with his first serve, winning 80% of the points on his first serve. That included 12 aces compared to just three for Tabilo.
The win also gave further proof that Fritz is past the effects of an oblique muscle strain that had bothered him in recent weeks.
“I feel healthy. But yeah, I’m not going to feel as good tennis-wise as I have been playing a lot of tennis and super confident, just because I had to take some time off to get it better,” Fritz said. “I’m not going to, I guess, feel like I have the proper prep. I knew I was going to have to play myself kind of into the tournament, and I’m doing that.”
Fritz said he looks forward to a fourth-round match against Draper, who will be the third lefthander in a row Fritz will face in Indian Wells this year.
“It’s going to be a tough match. I think it’s a tough draw to get him in the round of 16 as a top-4 seed,” Fritz said. “He’s a very good player. I think he’s probably better than his ranking is, and yeah, we have had some tight ones.”
