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Tennis legend Martina Navratilova has reacted to Taylor Fritz entering the top 10 of the ATP rankings.
The American defeated Frances Tiafoe to win the 2022 Rakuten Japan Open, his third title of the year. After two hours on Tokyo's hardcourts, the American won 7-6(3), 7-6(2) to win his fourth career title overall.
With his triumph, Fritz has now become the first American to enter the top 10 since Jack Sock in November 2017. When the rankings were released on Monday, he became the World No. 8.
In light of this, 18-time Grand Slam winner Navratilova congratulated Fritz and praised him for pulling off such an accomplishment, while also noting that he still has a lot to do.
"Well done Taylor!!! And you’re not done yet:)," she wrote.
"It’s so crazy, it’s exactly what I needed for my ranking" - Taylor Fritz
Taylor Fritz described the entire experience of winning the 2022 Tokyo Open as "amazing" and added that he desperately needed a title win to improve his ranking.
"It's crazy, I don’t even think it’s set in just how fast the last four or five days have been. It’s so crazy, and I couldn’t have written it any better. It’s exactly what I needed for the Race, for my ranking, to kind of put me in a good position for the end of the year, so it’s amazing," he said in his on-court interview.
According to the 24-year-old, he entered the competition with a lot of confidence and knew he could play well enough if he could only get past his first two matches, which he did with flying colors when the situation called for it.
"I came here confident that I could win a round or two and then see how it goes. I felt like if I could get through my first two matches, then I would probably be playing good enough tennis. So I think that was the real question mark, was those first two matches. But I honestly had a lot of confidence that I was going to win those," the American revealed.
He also spoke on his harrowing journey from being quarantined in Seoul after testing positive for COVID-19 to winning the title in Japan during his on-court interview with TennisTv. He stated that he was proud of himself for being so "clutch" during such a tense situation, especially with a spot in the ATP tour Finals on the line.
"Yeah. I mean, turning such a bad situation where I was, you know, didn't even know if I was going to be able to play this tournament. And if I wasn't able to play, it would have to be after being in a hotel room for seven days, having COVID and then taking a flight in the morning of," Taylor Fritz said.
"So turning a situation like that into a title and doing it when it has such an important impact on the race, it just feels good to kind of clutch up and do something big like this," he added.
