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Fritz, seeded 20th, posted a 6-3, 7-6 (5) triumph to score his
biggest victory and hand the fourth-seeded Nadal his first loss
of 2022. Nadal was 20-0.
The 24-year-old Fritz is the first American man to win at Indian
Wells since Andre Agassi in 2001. It is only his second career
victory, the other coming at Eastbourne in 2019.
"Winning this tournament especially, Indian Wells, this is one
of those childhood dreams that you just never think can come
true," Fritz said. "I just keep saying, 'No, no. Just no way
it's real.'"
The native of San Diego was winless in eight matches against the
Big Three of the sport -- Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Roger
Federer -- prior to Sunday's stunning victory.
"I've lost these matches against the big guys my whole life,"
Fritz said. "It's always felt like they were just unbeatable. So
to do it on the biggest stage, there's no other way. To win a
big title, you've got to beat the best. He was unbeaten this
year."
Nadal was laboring during the match and took two medical
timeouts -- one following the first set and the other while
trailing 5-4 in the second.
"I tried my best during the last two weeks," Nadal said on court
following the match. "Today was not possible. I had a good fight
to the end."
Fritz came out fast and won the first four games of the opening
set. He led 5-1 before Nadal made a minor push by winning the
next two games before Fritz closed out the set.
Fritz held 5-4 and 6-5 leads in the second set but Nadal forced
a tiebreaker. Nadal had a 5-4 lead in the tiebreaker before
Fritz won the next three points to record the victory.
Some members of Fritz's team were encouraging him not to play
Sunday. Fritz injured an ankle during his Saturday semifinal
victory over seventh-seeded Andrey Rublev and then aggravated it
during his Sunday warm-up session.
"I've never experienced worse pain in my life before a match,"
Fritz said. "We did a lot of work leading up to the match and I
went through a roller coaster of emotions before the match, from
thinking there was no way I could possibly play to then doing
all this work on the ankle, doing so much stuff to it. I came
out here and it didn't really affect me at all."
--Field Level Media
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