Taylor Fritz wants to make changes to his game after losing his third round match at Indian Wells.
Fritz is a former Indian Wells champion, having won his home Masters 1000 title in 2022 after beating Rafael Nadal in the final.
The American number one had made a winning start to his 2026 campaign, with Fritz winning his first match against Briton Jacob Fearnley.
However, Fritz came unstuck in his following match against fellow American Alex Michelsen, and he has now picked three parts of his game that he wants to improve.
Taylor Fritz wants to be more aggressive after Indian Wells exit
After Fritz was beaten by Michelsen 6-4, 7-6(6), he headed to his post-match press conference, where he was asked if there were any changes he wanted to make to his game going into the Miami Open.
The world number seven claimed that his serve was better than it has ever been, but Fritz admitted that he wanted to be more aggressive at his next tournament, as well as making improvements to his return and movement.
“Yeah, I mean, like I said, I didn’t feel amazing out there, but, you know, when I warmed up before the match today, I felt great. I thought I was hitting the ball amazing,” said Fritz.
“I think a big factor of it was just the wind. It really picked up in the time from when I warmed up to when I actually played.
“Yeah, I was having a really hard time just taking a bigger swing, being aggressive in the match. Like I said, typically when that happens, I just kind of shorten up the swings, be more consistent. You know, I did that and he was still able to, you know, attack and hurt me.
“It’s tough, but, you know, I’m doing a lot of things well. I think I’m serving probably the best I have ever served before. Again, I think the wind today made it kind of tough for me to really pinpoint my spots as well as I have been.
“But, you know, I just want to see myself being a bit more aggressive on shots that aren’t as easy, so, you know, kind of raising, you know, raising the aggressiveness a bit on balls that maybe I feel not great about attacking, because they’re, I guess, maybe slightly better than neutral balls.
“I’d like to be just returning and moving a bit better, as well. I think that’s kind of the things that I need to get back up to par, because I do think I’m serving as well as I have ever served, really.”
Fritz is not the only player to have stated this, with Alexander Zverev also attempting a more aggressive game style in a bid to win an elusive Grand Slam.
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Taylor Fritz explains what ‘impressed’ him about Alex Michelsen
This is the second time in as many meetings that Fritz has lost to Michelsen, someone who he spends a lot of time practicing with.
When asked what impressed him about Michelsen’s performance against him in Indian Wells, Fritz praised his serve, return, and general aggressive game style in the windy conditions.
“Yeah, like I said, I practice with him a good bit, and I was just really impressed with how he served, especially,” answered Fritz.
“More than anything, he just always came up with a really good serve when he needed it. You know, in the tiebreaker, two big points the tiebreaker, two serves on the outside of the line, several of the breakpoints I had, really great serves.
“Yeah, I was really impressed with that. As someone who practices with him a lot and plays with him a lot, I feel like the serving was really high level from him. And then I was impressed with how well he was able to just maneuver the ball in the wind.
“I was having a really hard time just attacking. I was having a really hard time doing anything other than just playing with big margins and putting the ball in play.
“He was able to change direction, be aggressive. He was putting returns deep. I was really impressed with just his ball striking and aggressiveness and control in the wind, because that’s something that I was really struggling to do that.”
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Michelsen will now progress to the fourth round of Indian Wells for the first time, where he will play Daniil Medvedev.
While Fritz will now head to the Miami Open, where he achieved his best result last year after reaching the semifinals.
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