2 things that stood out in Novak Djokovic's quarterfinal win over Taylor Fritz at US Open 2023
Second seed Novak Djokovic defeated ninth seed Taylor Fritz 6-1, 6-4, 6-4 in the quarterfinal of the 2023 US Open on Tuesday, September 5. The match, which lasted for a little more than two hours, saw the 36-year-old Serb not face any difficulty in emerging victorious.
Djokovic is now two matches away from winning his 24th Grand Slam title. He will face another American, Ben Shelton, in the semifinals on Friday. He should be the overwhelming favorite to win that match and reach the final.
On that note, here are two things that stood out in Djokovic's win against Fritz:
#1 Djokovic exploited Fritz’s shortcoming on the backhand
Djokovic engaged Fritz in a lot of crosscourt backhand exchanges from the beginning to exploit the latter’s shortcomings on the backhand side. The American struggled to put up with the Serb and committed a good number of unforced errors off of it.
Moreover, whenever Fritz got a chance to take the ball with his forehand, he mostly tended to overpress with it to put pressure on the Serb and hit it out of the court in the process.
Djokovic feasted on those errors and ran through the first set, breaking Fritz twice in the process. He kept pushing the American to the latter’s backhand corner and then pulled the trigger often with his down-the-line backhand to the open court.
#2 Taylor Fritz failed to make use of his opportunities
Fritz was not nearly as clinical as Djokovic. However, he used his crosscourt forehand more often as the match progressed to rob the Serbian of the opportunity to dictate terms with his backhand.
As a result, the American fared better in the second and third sets and also managed to break Djokovic a couple of times. However, Djokovic managed to get an extra break in each of those sets and finished the match off. He also used his drop shot sparingly to catch Fritz by surprise at times.
Fritz won 73% of the points on his first serve in the match against Djokovic’s 68%. However, he was only able to win 29% of the points on his second delivery, while his opponent managed 66%.
Fritz had as many as 12 breakpoint opportunities in the match but was able to convert only two of them. In comparison, Djokovic converted six of the nine breakpoint opportunities that came his way.