Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: Seventh seed Taylor Fritz suffered a first-round exit at the French Open in Paris following a shocking defeat at the hands of Nishesh Basavareddy, In his first appearance in the main draw of a clay court major, the American wild card Basavareddy prevailed on his fourth match point after a titanic fight against his compatriot, securing his first victory at Roland-Garros and his first win against a Top 10 player, becoming the first American to achieve this “double” in Paris since 1996 and Chris Woodruff, who had then beaten Andre Agassi.
In the pair’s first ATP head-to-head meeting, Basavareddy often put the seventh seed on the back foot with pinpoint backhand accuracy and deft drop shots.
“He just played incredibly well,” Fritz said of Basavareddy. “The biggest thing was just the drop shots were crazy. Typically when someone is dropshotting me too much, I kind of just tell myself, ‘Okay, I need to hit the ball deeper’.
“He was hitting insane drop shots, off balls that were landing on the baseline. He killed me with that, and there’s not really much I can do about it. He really cooked me with the drop shots today. I was very impressed with his feel,” he added. For the second year in a row Fritz , the No. 7 seed, was eliminated in the first round at Roland-Garros. Despite his defeat, he showed promise, putting up a strong fight, notably saving a match point in the third-set tiebreak. However, hampered by his lack of match practice, he then faded physically.
