Taylor Fritz has made a positive start to his Indian Wells title chase, beating Matteo Gigante in round two.
Stevie Johnson thinks Fritz is maturing, having been impressed by his fellow American in recent times compared to five years ago.
Fritz was handed a bye in the first round of Indian Wells, with the third seed then beating Italian qualifier Gigante 6-3, 7-5.
He has now set up a third round meeting with Alejandro Tabilo, who is the 30th seed at the ATP Masters 1000 event.
Indian Wells represents the fourth tournament of 2025 for Fritz, who started his season with a disappointing Australian Open run.
Taylor Fritz picks Reilly Opelka and John Isner as best servers he has faced
The ATP number four fell in the third round to Gael Monfils, before round of 16 and quarter-final exits at the Dallas Open and Delray Beach Open respectively.
His focus is now firmly on Indian Wells success, although he was tasked with looking back on his career in his latest press conference at the event.
Asked who his toughest opponents have been in terms of serve, return, forehand and backhand, he said: “It’s tough.
“Serve would be like Reilly [Opelka] or [John] Isner, for sure. Forehand, I don’t know. Like, maybe like [Andrey] Rublev, [Roger] Federer, something like that.
“Backhand, maybe [Jannik] Sinner, [Alexander] Zverev, yeah. Return, probably Novak [Djokovic]. Yeah, Sinner, also a very good returner.”
Where does Taylor Fritz rank among ATP Tour serve leaders?
Fritz has enjoyed a superb rise to world number four, helped by reaching the finals of the US Open and ATP Finals in 2024.
He lost both matches to world number one Jannik Sinner, but did manage to win titles at Delray Beach and Eastbourne earlier in the season.
The 27-year-old is an eight-time ATP champion, but will be eager to add a Grand Slam title to his honours list.
And his superb serving could be key to that, with Fritz currently fifth when it comes to serve leaders on the ATP Tour, while Isner tops the all-time aces list with 14,470.
| Rank | Player | Serve rating | % 1st serve | % 1st serve points won | % 2nd serve points won | % service games won | Avg. aces/match | Avg. double faults/match |
| 1 | Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard | 301.4 | 64.9% | 79.6% | 53.7% | 90.0% | 18.6 | 5.4 |
| 2 | Matteo Berrettini | 300.5 | 69.1% | 78.0% | 54.0% | 90.3% | 10.6 | 1.5 |
| 3 | Alexander Zverev | 297.3 | 70.1% | 76.9% | 54.3% | 89.2% | 9.2 | 2.4 |
| 4 | Jannik Sinner | 296.5 | 61.1% | 79.8% | 58.5% | 91.4% | 7.6 | 1.9 |
| 5 | Taylor Fritz | 296.2 | 62.7% | 79.4% | 55.8% | 89.5% | 10.5 | 1.7 |
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