U.S. Open: Taylor Fritz, other American men seem on verge of major tennis success despite miss in Flushing
Taylor Fritz sits in thought after losing the second set against Jannik Sinner during the men’s final in the U.S. Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing on Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024. Credit: Newsday/J. Conrad Williams Jr.
Maybe it was just too much to ask.
Maybe it was just too much to ask Taylor Fritz, a player who until this week had never made it past the quarterfinals of a Grand Slam tournament, to beat the No. 1 player in the world in front of a celebrity-laden crowd that included everyone from Taylor Swift to Elon Musk.
Maybe it was just too much to ask Fritz to end a 21-year dry spell for American tennis and beat Jannik Sinner, a robotic-style player who had dropped only one set the entire tournament.
Forced to shoulder the heavy expectations from a U.S. Open crowd starved to see an American champion, the 12th-seeded Fritz just couldn’t produce the near-perfect match he needed to pull off an upset. He was defeated, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5, on Sunday.
“I know we’ve been waiting for a champion for a long time. I’m sorry I couldn’t get it done this time,” Fritz told the U.S.-centric crowd at the awards ceremony. “But I’m going to keep working and hopefully I will get it done next time.”
Ah, yes, next time. If there’s one big positive for American tennis fans to take away from this U.S. Open, it’s that there soon could be a next time featuring either Fritz or one of the four other young American men currently ranked in the top 20: Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton, Tommy Paul and Sebastian Korda.
“I think they’re going to be right there knocking at the door,” ESPN analyst John McEnroe said after the match.
With Fritz’s loss, 83 Grand Slam tournaments have been played since Andy Roddick became the last American man to win one by defeating Juan Carlos Ferrero at the U.S. Open in 2003. (Wimbledon was canceled in 2020 because of the pandemic.)
The early exits of the last two U.S. Open champions — Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz — opened up this tournament for the young Americans to make a run. Tiafoe and Fritz made it all the way to the semifinals — guaranteeing an American in the final for the first time since 2006 — and Fritz triumphed in a five-setter that left his good friend in tears.
There was a lot of conjecture during the championship match that the five-setter had taken too much out of Fritz, that he was just too tired and emotionally spent to challenge the No. 1 player in the game. Fritz shrugged off that notion and later said he was feeling good about this match and his game plan.
“I mean, we’re six matches in, it’s the finals of a Slam, I don’t really expect to be feeling like fresh, you know,” Fritz said. “All things considered, my body felt fine. Mentally, honestly, I thought it was good.
“I was very nervous going into the semifinal. I didn’t feel anywhere near as nervous going into this match as I did in the semis. Emotionally, you know it’s obviously the U.S. Open final and I want to win it. But emotionally, I thought I was going to be OK. It wasn’t as bad as before my semifinals match and I found a way to get through that.”
Fritz beat Tiafoe by going on a six-game run in the final set. The best he was able to do against Sinner after losing the first two sets was a break to take a 5-3 lead. Fritz, however, was unable to serve out the set and Sinner won four straight games to take the title.
It was Sinner’s second Grand Slam title of the year as the 23-year-old Italian also won the Australian Open at the start of the season. It also came amid some controversy. Less than a week before the U.S. Open, it was revealed that Sinner had tested positive for anabolic steroids twice in March but had been cleared because the substance apparently had entered his system via a massage from a team member whom he later fired.
Several hours after the match, it was clear that Fritz thought he hadn’t played his best tennis, that he hadn’t taken advantage of the fact that he had gotten to such a big stage.
“Right now, I’m disappointed in how I played, how I hit certain shots. It sucks,” Fritz said. “I just would have liked to have played better and given myself a better chance. I feel like, the fans obviously, American fans, have been wanting a men’s champion for a long time . . . I feel like I let a lot of people down.”
Down? Maybe for the moment. But this week has shown that the future of American men’s tennis is something that fans can feel up about for years to come.
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.