Reflecting on his criticism of coaching when it was allowed more widely on tour this year, and questioning whether this weekend was an advertisement to extend it, Fritz drew a hard line between the two cases.
A sport that is a team makes sense. Tennis is an individual sport.
“No. The Lever Cup is a team competition. That’s all there is,” the American said. “I was never against training in team competitions. Team sports make sense. Tennis is an individual sport. So outside of this and other team competitions, I don’t think anyone should be able to tell you what to do.”
It’s a distinction both captains described from across the chair, never calling it a directive. Agassi said the challenge is not to guide world-class players but to not get in their way, that the captain “can’t parachute in and do magic” and that what he can do “is not get in their way”. Yannick Noah, captain of the European team, characterized it more from the point of view of temperature than of tactics. “It’s not so much what I’m saying. That’s pretty much how they feel if I can be of any use. I try to go with their energy.”
Fritz’s own week gave him little to soften the argument. He lost Friday’s doubles alongside Alexander Bublik, lost to Alcaraz in the weekend match and lost Sunday’s opening doubles with Alex de Minaur to Flavio Cobolli and Jakub Mensik, which put Europe within one game of the cup.
“I don’t take too many positives from it, I put zero points in,” he said. “I had a good match yesterday but in the end I still lost and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day if you win or lose. It is what it is and I’m just motivated to come back and do better next year in Los Angeles.”
He was equally indifferent to the conditions, refusing the easy explanation of a hostile crowd. “I don’t think the crowd was that tough. I thought the crowd was pretty honest. It’s more of just an away team,” he said. “They can have matches on Day 3, so to be in a position where going into Day 3 we’ve got to win three out of four matches when they pick the matches, it’s just a tough ask.”
