The American Taylor Fritz, 20th World Player, won for the first time in his career The Indian Wells Masters 1000, Sunday, March 20, beating in the final Spanish Rafael Nadal, yet great favorite.
Le Monde with AFP
Taylor Fritz won Sunday, March 20 The win in two sets (6-3, 7-6) in the final of the Indian Wells tournament, facing Rafael Nadal. Aged 24, the native of San Diego wins its second tournament on the ATP circuit, after the one on grass, much less prestigious, of Eastbourne in 2019. It is the first American to triumph in the Californian desert from Andre Agassi. In 2001.
It is mostly the first of the season to drop the Nadal ogre, player most titled in great kelems (with twenty-one victories) from his triumph at the Open of Australia at the end of January, who remained out of twenty Consecutive victories and targeted a fourth Sacre to Indian Wells (after 2007, 2009 and 2013). Spanish, which will have to wait to match the record of 37 titles in Masters 1000 held by Novak Djokovic, will have to console that the assurance of climbing worldwide as early as Monday.
He ended up again human, facing an opponent that the rumor did not say 100% of his means. Fritz had indeed had to quickly shorten his morning workout, because of a recalcitrant ankle. The day before spreading the Russian Andrey Rubev (7 e ), he had entrusted to having a little bad at the end of the match.
Nadal injured
But the most suffering of the two was obviously not the one we thought. Nadal, who had also caused himself a pectoral pain in the third set of his rough combat against his compatriot Carlos Alcaraz (19 e ), again called on the Kiné after losing the first set. And he left to be treated in the cloakroom for five minutes.
He had just gave up the first set, facing Fritz, who, like the day before to get rid of Andrey Rubev, gave the tone from the beginning of the match. The American was aggressive and seized his luck almost every exchange, relying on his excellent first bullet and his backwards – his best weapon.
Nadal resisted as he could in the second round, despite an increasingly obvious pain – he made this time massaging his back on the short – which penalized him mainly in turn, pushing him to do a lot direct mistakes. Spanish has however won very beautiful points by going to the end of itself, letting believe in an umpteenth remontada after saving a first match ball at 5-4 on its service.
But for once, he failed to convert the Break bullets that might have been restarted. He ended up yielding 7-5 to the decisive game.