Canada's Gabriel Diallo disappointed after loss to Fritz at National Bank Open

TORONTO — A straight-faced Gabriel Diallo slung his tennis bag over his shoulder as he walked across centre court while he waved to a cheering crowd, then he put one hand over his heart before he exited Sobeys Stadium.

It was not the match the 23-year-old from Montreal had hoped for, not even close.

“I just feel like I let a lot of people down today,” Diallo said, following a straight-sets loss to world No. 4 Taylor Fritz in the third round of the National Bank Open presented by Rogers, a 6-4, 6-2 match that took just an hour and 15 minutes.

“I didn’t really have a chance out there. Didn’t have a chance to get the crowd going,” Diallo said. “It’s just not an outing that you strive for, honestly, as a competitor. I kind of let him bully me around the court a lot today, and it’s not a good feeling.”

The world No. 36, Diallo was the last Canadian man standing in his national open, though he found it hard to find pride in that fact an hour after his third-round match ended.

“Playing like this, not really,” he said. “I think it’s disappointing that we didn’t have a guy perform a little bit deeper in the event. For us to play here is always a privilege and we always want to do well here. The fact that we all lost early is disappointing. But I think in losses we can learn a lot and hopefully come back next year stronger.”

Diallo, who has risen nearly 50 spots in world rankings since January, played stronger the last time he faced Fritz. Friday was a rematch of the five-set heartbreaker he lost to the American in Round 2 at Wimbledon earlier this month, the Canadian’s first-ever match against a top 5 player, which Diallo called “arguably” the best tennis he’d ever played. In his second-ever match against a top 5 player, again against Fritz, Diallo didn’t have the stuff he displayed earlier this month on the Wimbledon grass to push the American to five sets.

On Friday, Diallo opened with back-to-back double-faults, then put two forehands well out, handing Fritz an early break.

“It helps a lot, you know, he came out and played a loose first game,” Fritz said. “You start up a break, and I did a good job of just holding my serve and not letting him back into the set.”

Diallo was undone by unforced errors. He did manage to get his serve cooking — he held his third service game with back-to-back aces, hitting upwards of 230 km/h, and on the final point, he drilled a crosscourt forehand winner and yelled: “Come on!” Diallo’s serve-and-volley game worked well at times, and when he began the second set on serve, he didn’t give up a single point.

The mostly full crowd had the “Let’s go Dia-llo!” cheers going, but it wasn’t the atmosphere Fritz was expecting, playing a hometown player. “They were just very nice for me playing the last player in the tournament from Canada,” the American said.

“I thought it was going to be a little bit more hostile, but I guess everyone’s just so nice,” Fritz added, with a laugh.

It was mighty quiet in the stadium at the end of the third game in the second set. Diallo was serving and up 40-0, and Fritz managed to come back and earn his second break of the match. “Horrendous job on my end,” Diallo said. “It was a game-changer. Now he’s up a set and a break, he was serving really well, so the match was kind of played there.”

Later in the set, the Canadian double-faulted twice — he had six double-faults in all — to help Fritz make good on another break point, ending the match in a hurry.

“Very, very disappointing,” Diallo said. “It’s not one of the outings that you hope for when you’re going into matchups like this, especially against a player like Taylor. You’ve got to be super sharp, and today I wasn’t, so that’s why the score turned out this way.”

When he walked out to centre court on Friday night before his match, Diallo says he was “amped up, fired up.”

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