‘If tennis doesn’t work out I’ll go into eSports’ – How video games help Taylor Fritz win pressure points With every passing month, the divides between eSports and old-fashioned sport become less pronounced. Football clubs like Manchester City are […]

With every passing month, the divides between eSports and old-fashioned sport become less pronounced. Football clubs like Manchester City are already signing eSports players; the Olympic Games want to include eSports. The best players now earn seven figures a year. Taylor Fritz is a symbol of the coming together of these worlds.

He is the 68th-ranked men’s tennis player, and reckoned to have the game, physique and temperament to be a long-term star, as he showed in going two sets to one up against world No 3 Alex Zverev at Wimbledon before play was suspended last night. Fritz is also a committed eSports player who has been ranked among the top 100 FIFA players in North America.

“I’m just very, very, very good at video games,” Fritz (below) says when we meet the day before his second-round match. “I joke about if tennis doesn’t work out I’ll have to go into eSports but I’d say I’m close to that level.”

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A way to unwind

To Fritz, eSports are not a distraction to his burgeoning tennis career; instead, they are a tool to aid it. “The happier you are, the better mindset on tour, the results usually improve.” When he is on tour alone, after he has done six hours or so of tennis and fitness work a day, Fritz is happiest video-gaming.

“When I’m not at a tennis court or a gym, after I’ve done all my tennis stuff and everything I need to do, I’m pretty much playing video games a lot of the time,” he laughs. “It’s really the perfect thing for athletes because athletes work so hard and do so much fitness and on-court activity that you’re so tired – you shouldn’t have energy to go out and do other things that take energy.” Fritz routinely plays for three hours a day.

Last year, Fritz spent several months injured: more time for FIFA. “I was very, very good at FIFA in 2017 – I had an injury and I played a lot.”

Several other young players – including Nick Kyrgios and Jack Sock – like to say the same: good news for Fritz since his return to the tour. “I’ve won money from just betting with a lot of the tennis guys. A lot of the tennis guys think they can play FIFA but no-one’s on a level.”

The problem with FIFA is that it’s hard to earn much: only the top 10 or so players in North America make money. And so Fritz is now more focused upon a more lucrative eSport: Fortnite, a survivor game in which players must cope with 98 percent of Earth’s human population suddenly disappearing. “Right now I’m playing a lot of Fortnite and I’m extremely good”: a common refrain when Fritz is discussing his gaming.

Pressure situations

Fritz’s eSports aptitude is underpinned by the same qualities as his tennis. “Some of the things that make me good at tennis make me good at video games – like the hand-eye coordination and the reflexes and being good under pressure.”

Perhaps there is a link between Fritz’s exceptional record in final set tie-breaks – he has won 12 out of 14 across main ATP tour events and the Challenger circuit – and honing his mental strength in eSports, which he can find more pressurised than tennis. “You think about some of the situations in a tennis match, the money that we’re playing for – that I don’t get nervous in. But then you’ll get nervous in a video game when you’re about to win.”

Immersion in eSports has naturally led Fritz to explore how analysis – data and video technology – can enhance his own sporting career. “In tennis there’s definitely a lot of room for it just because of how people play – people’s tendencies and seeing what they like to do. Video is obviously very big,” he reflects. “When I’m looking at a video I’m looking for where’s this person going to serve on big points, so maybe I can get the edge on getting a return back. Or what shot is this person most likely to hit in this situation.”

Still, ahead of his biggest matches Fritz reins back the gaming. “It sounds dumb but it can be mentally draining.”

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It all sounds like the ultimate eternal childhood: resting from professional sport by playing virtual sport. Yet the paradox of Fritz is that he is also a preternaturally advanced 20-year-old off the court: he married at 18 – to Raquel Pedraza, a fellow American who briefly played on the professional tour – and had a son at 19.

“I’m really looking forward to him being a bit older and being able to start travelling more,” he says. “When I’m with them I’m just trying to spend as much time as I can with my son and family.” Then, even the eSports have to stop.

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