Coaches Corner

Russell explains ‘Taylor Fritz tennis’, preparing for Djokovic & more

Former World No. 60 details Fritz’s critical preparation in Melbourne

January 21, 2024

Peter Staples/ATP Tour

Michael Russell supports Taylor Fritz during his fourth-round win against Stefanos Tsitsipas.
By Andrew Eichenholz

Shortly after Taylor Fritz defeated Stefanos Tsitsipas in four sets Sunday, the American turned towards his team and said, “I told you! I told you!”

Did you wonder what he was talking about? Fritz’s coach, Michael Russell, revealed the answer.

“When he woke up this morning, he just said he felt amazing and he felt like everything was clicking and there was no way he was not going to find a way to win the match,” Russell told ATPTour.com. “Obviously you want your player to be confident going in and believing and trusting everything and thinking that they can win, but at the same time not being so overconfident that they don’t take their opponent lightly.

“Taylor knows how great of an opponent Stefanos is and he’s had unbelievable results already. So he knew it was going to be a tough battle.”

There were moments in the second set when Russell felt his charge was being a little bit too passive. But the No. 1 American remedied that in the third and fourth sets.

“I just kept encouraging and reminding him that Taylor Fritz tennis is serving big and serve-plus one crushing forehands and ripping backhands,” Russell said. “He did a good job of stepping up and just not relying on the opponent trying to just give him unforced errors or free errors where he actually took it from his opponent and took the racquet out of his hand.”

Russell added: “Taylor’s got a great tennis IQ and then sometimes he over-analyses things. Keeping it simple and staying aggressive can be the winning strategy a lot of the time.”

Fritz will need to bring his ‘A’ game in the quarter-finals against 10-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic, who leads their Lexus ATP Head2Head series 8-0.

“You’ve got to have that belief and look, everyone has a chance when you step on court and, the thing is, Taylor is playing great tennis,” Russell said. “He has to play aggressive, his fitness is pretty good. He’s gotten through some four-set matches and felt great physically. He feels great right now and every time you play Novak it’s always going to be physical. But he’s played him here before, he knows what to expect. And he’s got to serve well and play aggressive.

“You can’t think so much about what he’s doing even though he is a phenomenal returner, we all know that. But at the same time, if you start worrying so much about what he’s doing, it takes away from your own service rhythm,” Russell said. “So you’ve really got to make sure you’re focussing on your spots, serve, then just go through your whole rhythms and make sure that you’re staying aggressive, breathing, staying relaxed, and then you can worry about all the other stuff.”

Russell has his own experience standing across the net from Djokovic on the practice court, most recently at Roland Garros just more than a decade ago. The former No. 60 player in the Pepperstone ATP Rankings explained that the depth of Djokovic’s rally ball stood out.

“Rafa, once he controls the point with his forehand, it’s very difficult to get out of that yo-yo. He’s just so dominant once he controls the point with his forehand. And Roger for me, his serve and plus-one, he took the forehand so early and off the court,” Russell said. “Novak, he puts so much pressure on you with his return of serve, and his ability to get so many serves back. And also his depth in the rally. He doesn’t leave a lot of balls short and so over time, it’s little body blows and jabs, so it’s tough to get on him.

“It’s really important that you serve well and try to get on his second serve a little bit. And also during the rallies, push him back a little bit and give him some different looks, and not make him so comfortable where he just feels like he can just kind of push you around the court and take away your legs.”

Another nugget to consider is that Fritz has been in Melbourne longer than most. Last year, the United States won the United Cup. This year, the country did not advance out of the group stage, so Fritz and his team arrived in Melbourne on 3 January, giving him more time to train at the home of the season’s first major. They did six or seven “tough days”, with the last one coming the Wednesday before the tournament.

“We’ll play two hours, [during] which we’ll play three sets, get ready, and then we’ll just go right to the gym and do 30 minutes on the VersaClimber,” Russell said. “Then we’ll go right into an hour of weights as well. So we’re trying to create higher volume days where it’s a three-and-a-half hour workload, which is more similar to playing a three-out-of-five set match.”

Russell, who is known for his own physical fitness, would go through the cardio with Fritz to push him. The 12th seed will be plenty confident that he has the physical side as good as possible leading into his first Australian Open quarter-final.

“Not getting out of the group in Perth gave us an extra seven days of training here to get ready for this and I think that’s been a big, positive and beneficial component to Taylor so far being in the quarter-finals,” Russell said. “Having that extra push of training and fitness, it gives him confidence and also use of the courts and the balls and everything. So it’s a big positive.”