Taylor Fritz faces Frances Tiafoe in the second round of the 2022 Australian Open on Thursday, January 20th 2022.
An exciting battle of the Americans is here for us to watch in Australia. Will the higher ranked Taylor Fritz show us why he is currently the no.1 American, or will Frances Tiafoe use his flamboyant playing style to get the upset?
Frances Tiafoe had to come through an extremely tough opening match, beating the qualifier, Trungelliti, in 5 sets. Frances should have never let that match go that far, but what we often see from Frances is that when things are easy, he takes them too lightly, and it can backfire. Tiafoe was able to find his composure when it was needed, which saves him from losing so early on. However, he now needs to ensure he’s ready to fight as he meets a much tougher opponent.
Taylor Fritz cruised through his opening match against a qualifier, Marterer, beating the German in straight sets. The first set was quite tight, but after that, Fritz cruised through it. Its a great story as Fritz continues to play this strongly, having had surgery early last year which took him out for a few months, and then he returned ready to give it his all and fought back to be the top American on the ATP Tour. Can he go even further in 2022?
This is going to be the 4th meeting between both players, with Taylor having won 2 of their 3 prior encounters. They have not played against each other since 2019, and since then it is clear that Taylor has been on another level compared to Frances. Frances can definitely get the win here if he is at his best. However, based on his opening round match, he did not seem ready to go here in Australia. It will be tight as it always is amongst these guys, but Taylor will get into the third round.