BNP Paribas Open: Taylor and Guy Fritz have come full circle, with the younger Fritz playing his best tennis

Long before Taylor Fritz won the BNP Paribas Open last March to become the first American champion in more than two decades, his father first brought him to Indian Wells. The trips became a yearly tradition, with the two driving from their San Diego area home to watch the greatest tennis players in the world compete on one of the sport’s biggest stages in the California desert.

But for a time, tennis played a role in pulling father and son apart instead of bringing them together.

“Growing up, with him coaching me,” said Taylor Fritz, who reached a career-high fifth in the world on Feb. 27, “I feel like it definitely wasn’t good for our relationship. Just the player to coach type dynamic.”

Fritz, 25, returns to Indian Wells this year to defend his BNP Paribas Open championship.

His father, Guy Fritz, was a lower-level professional tennis player in the 1970s and early ‘80s, peaking at No. 301 in the world in 1979. He then coached for years at College of the Desert.

Taylor Fritz was born in 1997 to parents who both had played tennis as pros. His mother, Kathy May, reached a handful of Grand Slam quarterfinals in the late ‘70s and peaked as high as No. 10 in the world in 1977.

So it made at least some sense that with Taylor Fritz's pedigree and the right mentoring, he'd have a decent shot to one day become an American tennis star.

Guy Fritz understood this and made his son’s development one of his primary focuses.

“I did everything I possibly could to make him a champion,” said Guy Fritz, who is in his second stint coaching at COD. “From the minute he was born, I can’t even tell you every little thing I did.”

Among the list of things Guy Fritz implemented was to have his son repeatedly walk on a balance board as a toddler. He set up a makeshift home gym and kept his son on a clean, vegetable-centered diet while dramatically limiting his sugar intake.

Then there was the meticulous coaching on the tennis court, which began when Taylor Fritz was just 2. All the work over the years eventually helped him capture an ITF junior world championship in 2015. He was the first American in a decade to accomplish the feat.

But despite success on the court, Fritz’s relationship with his father was not ideal.

“We were both very stubborn,” Taylor Fritz said. “I would talk back. He’d keep me on the court, some days, really long. It definitely did create a lot of friction between us. He pushed me hard, but I know he did it because he knew that — now, where I’m at — I’d be really thankful for all of it.”

At the time, though, it all became too much for the younger Fritz, who sought a new coaching voice when he turned pro at 18. It happened around the time his parents divorced.

“That’s what I think was tough,” said Guy Fritz, speaking of the divorce. “I think he maybe blamed that on me a little bit.”

'One of the greatest moments of my life'

Transitioning into the pro game, Taylor Fritz played qualifiers at Indian Wells in 2015, before reaching the main draw a year later, at 18.

He grew to be 6-foot-5 and, without his father coaching him, Fritz won a pair of main draw matches in 2017, including one that came over seventh-ranked Marin Cilic of Croatia. In 2018, Fritz won three more matches at Indian Wells, with the Southern California crowds filling Stadium 1 for nearly every match.

With his dad no longer involved in the day-to-day coaching of his son, but offering support in other ways, the relationship between father and son began to dramatically improve.

“I’d say, over the next couple of years, after having the success, I could appreciate that the only reason I’ve had the success I’ve had is because he sometimes had to be the bad guy,” Taylor Fritz said. “He made me work. I had to get to that point where I understood what we were working toward.”

In 2021, with former pro Michael Russell playing a leading role in coaching Fritz, the Rancho Santa Fe native saw a breakthrough. He got into the best shape of his life and became much more explosive with both his serve and his return game. That provided Fritz with a more aggressive presence on the court, with him playing with a bigger serve and going after the ball with his forehand much more often.

“All that has translated into more confidence, which he’s seen from all the successes he’s had so far,” Russell said. “He’s continued to build on that.”

In 2021, Fritz entered the Indian Wells tournament, which had been moved from March to October due to COVID-19, ranked 39th in the world. But his play was surging, and he marched into the semifinals with victories over seventh-ranked Matteo Berrettini of Italy and fourth-ranked Alexander Zverev of Germany.

One step shy of the Indian Wells final, Fritz lost a first-set tiebreak to Nikoloz Basilashvili of Georgia, which swung the momentum of a match that the young American ultimately lost in straight sets.

But his Indian Wells run was a springboard to even greater things. Fritz advanced to the final in St. Petersburg, Russia in his next event, then he reached the quarterfinals of the ATP Masters 1000 event in Paris, upsetting sixth-ranked Andrey Rublev of Russia before falling to top-ranked Novak Djokovic.

Following a handful of events in 2022, Fritz returned to the BNP Paribas Open last March — just five months after making the semifinals at Indian Wells — and ran the gauntlet. After injuring his right ankle in a semifinal win over Rublev, Fritz considered withdrawing due to the ankle injury before taking the court and beating Spanish tennis icon Rafael Nadal in the final. In doing so, he became the first American to win the tournament since Andre Agassi and Serena Williams each did it in 2001.

After the match, Guy and Taylor Fritz embraced on Stadium Court, tears welling in both of their eyes.

“It was one of the greatest moments of my life,” Guy Fritz recalls. “In both of our lives, really.”

'It was all for that'

Guy Fritz said that neither are completely satisfied with the one Indian Wells title. He said that both he and his son are hoping for more this season, which will be a critical one.

Fritz is the highest-ranked American in the men’s game, and now the first American defending champion at Indian Wells since Agassi in 2002. There are hopes of winning a Grand Slam, reaching the top ranking in the world and other milestones that father and son still hope to reach.

But there’s now more pressure than ever, a target on Fritz’s back, his dad says, and the challenge of not getting complacent with his success.

So entering Indian Wells following a tournament title at Delray Beach (Fla.), Fritz is doing everything he can to set the stage for another run. Last year, he played doubles with Tommy Paul, another young American star. To set the stage again, he asked Paul to play doubles with him again this year.

“If anyone knows Taylor,” Paul said, “they know that he’s superstitious. So, he was begging me to play doubles with him so that he can keep all the things the same.”

That is the goal for Fritz — to keep things the same, at least this year at Indian Wells. There is surely more that Fritz wants to accomplish, he said, but these next two weeks in the California desert playground, reliving the moment he had last year with his father, is the top priority.

“Anyone that knows me and my dad knows that he’s a very tough person to get a compliment out of,” Taylor Fritz said. “To genuinely see him happy, it was super emotional.

“It just comes full circle. Everything that we worked toward and all the time we spent practicing and arguing on the court, it was all for that.”

Andrew John covers the BNP Paribas Open for The Desert Sun and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com. Find him on Twitter: @Andrew_L_John.

Taylor Fritz returns

Ranking: 5

From: Ranch Santa Fe, California

Favorite shots: Serve and forehand

Indian wells record: 15-5

Career titles: 6

Titles in 2023: 2 (United Cup, Delray Beach)

Career W-L record: 188-147

Career earnings: $11,074,909

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: BNP Paribas Open: Taylor Fritz returns to Indian Wells to defend title