It was an avalanche of short rallies that once again buried Taylor Fritz.
Jannik Sinner defeated Fritz 6-4, 6-4 in the final of the Nitto ATP Finals on Sunday with another all-conquering performance in the first four shots of the point. Sinner defeated Fritz by the same scoreline in their round-robin match earlier in the week. The Italian was simply too strong with the first two times he struck the ball in the point all evening long.
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In their round-robin match, Sinner won six (43-37) more points in the 0-4 rally length, according to Infosys ATP Stats. In the final, Sinner once again crafted an identical six-point advantage, winning the first strike points 46-40. In the final, a sizable 74 per cent (86/117) of all points were played in short rallies, ramping up the significance of winning this rally length since it counted for almost three out of every four points played.
Sinner won the mid-length rallies of 5-8 shots by only one shot, eight to seven. He won it by only two shots (18-16) in their round-robin encounter. Sinner won the long rallies of 9+ shots by two shots (9-7) in both the round-robin match and the final. Sinner was essentially allowed to copy and paste the identical first-strike tactics from one match to the other. The problem for Fritz was that he could not switch up his tactics enough to make a difference.
When Fritz was broken at three all in the opening set, he lost three of the points the same way, committing a Serve +1 backhand error. Five of the points he lost in that game were in the 0-4 shot rally length. When Fritz was broken at 2-2 in the second set, four of the five points he lost were in the 0-4 rally length.
It was a combination of Sinner being able to take time away from Fritz to get his hands and feet correctly organized for the quick exchanges at the start of the point and also the American not having a solid Plan B - such as net play - to keep Sinner guessing as to what was coming next. Fritz won an impressive 7/8 points at net in the final, which begs the question why didn’t he look to come forward more to dine on the higher win percentages on offer? Fritz only won 37 per cent of his baseline points in the final.
Another telling story from the match was the number of times Sinner could immediately dictate with his forehand right after the serve at the start of the point.
Serve +1 Groundstrokes
Sinner
Serve +1 Forehands = Won 21/28 (75%)
Serve +1 Backhands = Won 4/10 (40%)
Fritz
Serve +1 Forehands = Won 9/17 (53%)
Serve +1 Backhands = Won 55% (12/22)
Sinner hit 28 forehands as the first shot after the serve, winning a dominant 75 per cent of those points. Fritz could only find 17 Serve +1 forehands, winning just 53 per cent. It was the Sinner forehand that was the sheriff in town who dictated the conversation at the start of almost all rally points.
Lastly, Sinner hit slightly more forehands for the match (81-78). Fritz was nowhere near that mark, striking 87 backhands to just 69 forehands. There simply wasn’t enough firepower to call upon to initially wrestle enough control of the point.
Despite falling to 1-4 in his Lexus ATP Head2Head series with Sinner, Fritz, by reaching the final, will finish the year at a career-high No. 4 in the PIF ATP Rankings.
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