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The 36-year-old defending champion had beaten
Fritz in all eight of their previous meetings, including a
five-sets win at Melbourne Park in 2021 and a crushing victory
at the U.S. Open last year.
But Djokovic has taken his time to get going at this year's
tournament as he seeks an 11th title and 25th major to surpass
Margaret Court's haul, and the top-seeded Serb was unable to
break in a marathon first game that had nine deuces.
Fritz saved eight break points and went toe to toe with his
opponent in energy sapping conditions before setting up two set
points but Djokovic saved them both to force a tiebreak, where
he took his level up a few notches.
The Serb cupped his ear as the crowd roared when he fired a
superb cross-court winner to earn five set points and bagged the
early lead in the contest after 84 minutes.
Fritz broke early in the next set and bailed himself out of
trouble several times with stinging backhand winners as Djokovic
looked to respond, but the 26-year-old American held firm and
drew level at one set all with a comfortable hold.
Djokovic cooled off by placing ice packs on his head in the
third set but he was only comfortable after finally breaking his
opponent on his 16th attempt en route to a 2-0 lead, which gave
him the platform to push on and win the set.
Fritz appeared to struggle with his movement at times in the
fourth set and Djokovic moved in for the kill to break in the
sixth game before fending off a comeback attempt from Fritz to
prevail.
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Melbourne; Editing by Peter
Rutherford)
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