American Taylor Fritz kicked off action at the 2024 ATP Finals in Turin, Italy with a convincing straight-set win over Russian Daniil Medvedev. Fritz, the 2024 US Open finalist, is seeking to be the first American to win the ATP Finals in a quarter-century since Pete Sampras in 1999.
Fritz used his powerful serve and minimized his unforced errors to put Medvedev on the defensive.
The match was effectively decided in the final game of the first set. Down 4-5 and trying to stay in the set, Medvedev served three consecutive double faults to surrender the set.
Medvedev Became Unhinged
Daniil Medvedev began to air out his frustrations on his racquet. He threw it multiple times, garnering a warning and point violation in Fritz’s first service game of the second set.
Medvedev continued to play cat-and-mouse with the chair umpire by repeatedly tossing his racquet up and down, almost encouraging more penalties or potentially a default. He also indicated that he wanted to retire from the match, but somehow that did not occur.
Daniil Medvedev doing his best ‘party juggler’ impression on court vs Taylor Fritz at the ATP finals in Turin.
Threw his racket up in the air a few times, got point penalty & then said he will retire.
Total meltdown in set 2 from Medvedev.
— edgeAI (@edgeAIapp) November 10, 2024
He is an outstanding player, but when he goes off on these tangents, it is hard to watch. The last time fans saw it was in Cincinnati over the summer.
Fritz Stayed Composed
To his credit, Taylor Fritz stayed composed during Medvedev’s meltdown winning the match in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, with great shotmaking and steely nerve.
World #5 Taylor Fritz gets a very good first win at the ATP Finals, beating 2020 champ and world #4 Daniil Medvedev 6-4, 6-3.
Looks in good form and Daniil was overall quite poor.
8th top 10 win of the year. pic.twitter.com/mOy81qrbkv
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) November 10, 2024
Medvedev is the 2020 ATP Finals Champion and one of the best hardcourt players in the world. Presumably, he will regroup for the next match of round-robin action.
Can Fritz End The American Drought?
This is the second time in 2024 that American tennis fans have asked whether Taylor Fritz can end the drought in men’s tennis. Fritz came up short at the 2024 US Open, losing to Jannik Sinner.
Fritz’s life has been eventful since that US Open final. He dyed his hair blonde only to dye it back to brown after it started to grow out in multiple colors. While in London vacationing with his girlfriend Morgan Riddle, their place was the location of an attempted break-in. And Fritz has been outspoken about the upcoming changes to tennis that will allow off-court coaching in 2025.
Taylor Fritz’ blonde era lasted about 20 days.
Welcome back 😂 pic.twitter.com/TjZEoOufws
— The Tennis Letter (@TheTennisLetter) November 5, 2024
All that aside, Fritz looked focused and ready to contend at the 2024 ATP Finals in his first match.
