Tennis

Taylor Fritz Australian Open 2023: Odds, Next Match and Predictions

Read this Taylor Fritz Australian Open 2023 preview before betting on his next match in Round Two.

Taylor Fritz Australian Open 2023 Odds

Heading into the Australian Open, Taylor Fritz was the joint sixth favourite in the bookmakers’ odds to win the tournament.

The American No.1 experienced a breakout 2022, where he won his first Masters 1000 title and cracked the world’s Top 10 in the rankings. However, Fritz is yet to experience much joy at Grand Slams, having only once made a quarterfinal, and his best Australian Open result being the Round of 16 last year. Now, seeded eighth in the Australian Open 2023 as the World No.9, Fritz is poised to make a deep run in a Grand Slam for the first time.

After winning his first round match, Taylor Fritz’s odds have increased slightly, from 19/1 (20.00) to 14/1 (15.00). Overall this moves him into joint fourth favourite, as the American’s odds benefit more from Krygios’ withdrawal than they do from his round one win.

Here’s a look at how Fritz’s first match unfolded, and what’s next for the American at the Australian Open.

Taylor Fritz Australian Open 2023 Last Match

Drawn against Georgian Nickoloz Basilashvili, Fritz was thrown a solid test in his opening round.

The eighth seed would ultimately prevail in four sets, but not without a strong challenge by the former World No.16 Basilashvili. Fritz won the first two sets relatively comfortably, 6-4, 6-2 picking up two breaks in each set. However, the third set saw Basilashvili up his game, winning 94% of his first serve and striking 15 winners to claim the set 6-4.

Fritz dug deep however, and avoided going to a fifth set by outlasting his 30-year-old opponent in a tight fourth set, eventually winning 7-5. The American would end the match with 32 aces, 41 winners and 27 unforced errors.

Taylor Fritz

Taylor Fritz Australian Open 2023 Next Match

America’s big hope in the Australian Open 2023 will run into one of Australia’s home hopes in the second round, with a clash set against Alexei Popyrin on Thursday.

The World No.113 will be fired up to cause an upset over Fritz in their second round encounter, having entertained the Aussie crowd for four and a half hours on Tuesday, defeating Chun-Hsin Tseng 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-7(5), 7-6(4), 6-1. While Popyrin will have the local crowd behind him, Fritz has the benefit of being more than 100 positions above the 23-year-old Australian wild card in the rankings.

For Popyrin, it will be his fourth time making the second round of the Australian Open, with the Australian successfully progressing beyond this point twice in previous tournaments.

Taylor Fritz Australian Open 2023 Prediction

Taylor Fritz should navigate his next two rounds fairly comfortably. Popyrin will give him a good tune up, but the American ultimately has too many weapons to be defeated by the 23-year-old, unless he plays out of his skin.

The same should go for Fritz’s likely third round encounter against either Ben Shelton or Nicolas Jarry, though Shelton has been picked as a player likely to breakthrough in the next few seasons. After this, Fritz will likely play a Round of 16 against the returning Alexander Zverev, and a quarter against Casper Ruud.

We say Fritz has a decent chance of rolling all the way to the semifinals in the 2023 Australian Open, but it will be thus far and no further, as the American would come smack bang into the tournament’s No.1 favourite at that point: Novak Djokovic.

Taylor Fritz

Taylor Fritz Form Ahead of 2023 Australian Open

Taylor Fritz has played a fair amount of tennis already in 2023, and we are only a couple of weeks into the new season. Now the reason for this is that he played essentially all of the fixtures for the USA at the United Cup. And this event alone makes up the entirety of Fritz’s last five matches, which you can see here:

  • Fritz vs Berrettini – won – 7-6, 7-6
  • Fritz vs Hurkacz – won – 7-6, 7-6
  • Fritz vs Norrie – lost – 4-6, 7-5, 4-6
  • Fritz vs Zverev – won – 6-1, 6-4
  • Fritz vs Lehecka – won – 6-3, 6-4

Apart from a three-set loss to Cam Norrie, Fritz has won all of his matches at the United Cup. He even won the clinching match against Berrettini to take the title for the USA. This must have been a great moment for Fritz, and we are sure he has great memories from the competition. Of course, beating guys like Zverev and Hurkacz will also give him plenty of confidence going into this Grand Slam.

Past Australian Open Results for Taylor Fritz

People tend to forget that Fritz is just 25 years of age. And it wasn’t until the last few years that he rose to the top of the men’s game. However, concerning the Australian Open, Fritz has competed in this event plenty of times. In total, he has been involved in the Australian Open seven times. His best performance at this event actually came last year when he lost in the 4th round to Stefanos Tsitsipas in a thrilling five-setter.

Prior to his 4th round appearance in 2022, Fritz had bowed out in the 3rd round three times running. This means that he failed to go beyond the 3rd round in 2021, 2020, and 2019. And the year before that (2018), he didn’t even make it through the qualifiers. Then again, we did say that Fritz has only really established himself as a top player in recent times. As for the other two appearances, he lost in the first round in both 2016 and 2017.

Ahead of the 2023 Australian Open, Fritz boasts a 9-6 win/loss record at this event. And for those who like statistics, this makes his winning percentage just 60%. Here’s the good news about that – this is the highest win percentage that Fritz has had at any Grand Slam. So one could argue based on this that Fritz likes the Australian Open the most.


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