Taylor Fritz advanced to the third round of the Cincinnati Open with a rather comfortable 6-3, 6-4 win over compatriot Alex Michelsen on Sunday, August 16. However, the American’s unexpected outburst in the fourth minute of the match hardly suggested that the contest would prove so straightforward.
Fritz was broken in his opening service game, prompting an intense reaction as he smashed his racket. Interestingly, the American was not broken again for the remainder of the match and broke his opponent three times to seal the victory.
Taylor Fritz Addresses His Cincinnati Open Outburst
Fritz received a first-round bye, entering the Cincinnati Open as the sixth seed following an opening-match exit at the Canadian Open against Thiago Agustín Tirante. Having won the Mubadala DC Open a couple of weeks ago, the American was looking to extend his win streak on home soil, beginning his campaign against Michelsen.
He, however, got off to a poor start, losing the opening game amid Cincinnati’s hot, humid, and windy conditions. During his on-court interview, the former World No. 4 said, “Tough match, especially to come out and play such a bad first game to get broken. It’s never easy to start a match like that.”
Fritz lost his cool and obliterated his racket but quickly recovered, breaking back in the very next game without conceding a point. When asked whether the outburst was a sudden surge of anger or something he had carried into the match, he clarified, “It all came in at the first game.”
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“If I can’t serve well, my serve is what I do as good as anybody. I come out first game on the side with wind helping me, the side that I should definitely be holding serve on. And I make one first serve, which he hits a winner off of, and then double fault and then just second serve every other point.”
“That got me really frustrated. Sometimes you’ve just got to snap it, and it helped me just get over it. I feel like if I tried to keep it in there, I might not have turned it around so quick,” he added.
A racquet smash after ONE GAME 🤔@Taylor_Fritz97 explains… #CincyTennis pic.twitter.com/zHuZ19gvFR
— Tennis TV (@TennisTV) August 16, 2026
Taylor Fritz broke Michelsen for the second time in the fourth game of the set and held serve thereafter to clinch the opener 6-3. He carried that momentum into the second set, breaking the 21-year-old in the opening game before eventually closing out the match in straight sets after one hour and 25 minutes.
The American is targeting his 12th career title and second Masters 1000 trophy after winning Indian Wells in 2022. With the US Open approaching, where he finished runner-up in 2024, Fritz will be looking to make a deep run in Cincinnati. He awaits the winner of Daniel Mérida Aguilar and Zizou Bergs in the third round.
