ATP Tour

After Turin exit, Fritz reflects on 2025 season

Taylor Fritz’s time at the Nitto ATP Finals may not have gone how he hoped, but the 28-year-old is looking forward to the offseason and, in due course, preparing for the 2026 season.

A finalist last year in Turin, Fritz’s season came to a close Thursday after he fell to Alex de Minaur in his final round-robin match. The American finished the year with a 53-23 record, an identical match to what he posted last season, according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index.

Looking ahead to some time off, Fritz's first goal is a full recovery from knee tendinitis.

“The plan is to just stay on top of the rehab, and hopefully with the rehab and not playing a tonne of tennis for a couple weeks will show some improvements and I can get it better,” Fritz said. “Then, I still have time to train and be ready for the next season.”

Fritz added two titles to his trophy cabinet this year to bring his career haul to 10, having triumphed in Stuttgart and Eastbourne during the grass-court swing.

Unless Ben Shelton upsets defending champion Jannik Sinner on Friday, Fritz will finish as the American No. 1 for the fifth straight year. The last player other than Fritz to hold the position was John Isner in 2020. Still, Fritz is hungry for more.

“One of my biggest issues this year was anytime that I wasn't playing tournaments or matches, I wasn't actually able to really work on the things I felt like I needed to work on to get better and train hard,” Fritz said. “I felt like I was just trying to maintain and take time off, feel like I could be healthy, fresh, ready to play tournaments. I didn't really get to go as hard as I would have liked to in my time off.”

With his straight-sets defeat to De Minaur, the American fell to 1-2 in the Jimmy Connors group and 5-6 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with the Australian. In their first meeting of 2025, De Minaur constantly made Fritz uncomfortable from the back of the court.

“He's never been my favorite person to play because I think, one, he moves so well, but [also], he doesn't play very defensive against me,” Fritz said. “I watch him play other matches, sometimes I feel like he is willing to rally, play a bit safer. I feel like he plays very offensive against me. His ball stays very flat and low. It can sometimes be tough to attack off that ball if I'm not feeling great with my forehand.”

The hefty-serving Fritz won just 66 per cent of his first-serve points, compared to De Minaur’s 83 per cent.

“He was picking sides, guessing sometimes on my serve,” Fritz said. “It made it tough sometimes to serve because I'd hit serves that I'm used to never coming back, and he's already taken three steps in that direction when I toss the ball. He just crushes the return back at me. He did a lot of good things.”