After breaking into the top 15 of the ATP rankings, Taylor Fritz is looking for more success at this month’s US Open. After a gut-wrenching five-set loss to Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals at this year’s Wimbledon, the 24-year-old is hoping to become the first American man to win a grand slam singles title since Andy Roddick in 2003.
You played an epic against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon. How does a tough loss like that change your mindset? I’m motivated to keep having results and keep putting myself in those types of situations where I can play those matches. That one hurt because I wanted it so bad. I felt like I put in all the work, I felt like I deserved it. I really felt like I was going to win the match the entire time until the very end.
Because of the ban on Russian and Belarusian players, no rankings points were given out at this year’s Wimbledon. How do you feel about that? I think it was fair that we took points away. I think it was unfair that those players weren’t able to just play representing no flag. [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] has nothing to do with them. They shouldn’t have been banned from the tournament, but after that happens and you have all these players that don’t get the chance like everybody else does to compete for points, it wouldn’t be fair to collect points, which obviously is tough because if I had gotten the points from Wimbledon, I’d be top 10 right now. It’d be huge for me but, bias aside, I have to say it sucks. I wish we all could have played. I wish there could’ve been points, but if certain players aren’t going to be allowed to play, then I don’t think it’s fair that there’s points.
You have mentioned in the past that you wanted the ATP to be more accepting of players showing their personality during matches. The Nick Kygrios v Stefanos Tsitsipas Wimbledon match had a lot of things that weren’t part of the game itself. What would you comment on that? I think the refs probably allowed too much. It was all extremely entertaining and that’s the point that I’m trying to make in all of this is that tennis needs to be more entertaining and stuff like that is entertaining, but there’s levels to it. I think the umpires allowed Nick to kinda just talk after the decision was made, that Tsitsipas isn’t going to get defaulted after hitting the ball into the crowd. They let the match be delayed a little bit too much. I also think Stef probably should have been defaulted for the ball [into] the crowd. Regardless if it hits anybody or not, if you smack a ball in anger into the crowd, you should get defaulted. I don’t think there’s any excuse.
Do you think a personality like Kygrios can help attract kids to tennis? Yeah, for sure. I think there’s probably so many kids that want to play tennis because of Nick. Or, at the very least, there’s so many people that are my age that don’t know much about tennis, but they know Nick and they’re like: “Yeah, that guy is super entertaining. I don’t like tennis, but I like watching him.” It’s stuff like that that is going to bring younger, newer fans. The stuff Nick does, it’s entertaining and it brings a lot of new eyes to tennis, and it turns off the people that are maybe long-time diehard tennis fans, but it also turns on a lot of people that aren’t tennis fans.
Why do you think it’s been so long since the US has had a male grand slam singles champion? It’s been incredibly hard for any country to have a grand slam champion over the past 10 years, because we’re playing with the three best players of all time. So, maybe now in the upcoming years, there’s going to be a lot more opportunities for everybody to have more chances because there’s still so many great players, but there’s not certain players that are as dominant as the ones that we’ve been playing against … for the past 10, 15 years. I think that’s a big thing. And I think that we have this really strong young group and between all of us, we push each other, we’re all playing better and better each year. I think that a lot of us are gonna be in contention for slams for sure soon.
How are you hoping to get kids more interested in the sport? The number one thing is being a top player. I’m playing lots of matches and kids can watch me. I feel like I have a lot of energy on the court and off the court and just be a relatable, normal guy. I think it’s important to have just more of a personality and not be such a robot, like the press conference always saying the same answers. I always answer things exactly how they are, even if it could be upsetting or to some people controversial. But like, I feel like normally I just kind of give my honest unbiased opinion, and on the court, just try to play with a lot of fire and a lot of energy. At the end of the day, I need to win a lot of matches and become a really good player, so more people can come see me play and maybe draw a lot more interest to the sport.
On the topic of children. How’s life been balancing tennis and fatherhood? It’s really tough to be on the road as much as I am. [But] there’s not really much I can do about the fact that I have to be playing tournaments since [this is] my career [and] my job. But time management wise, I try to do the best I can when I’m home to see my son as much as possible and to be there. I’m hoping that when he gets a little bit older, it’ll be a lot easier to have him travel with me and then do more stuff. But, we make it work and I try to see him as much as I possibly can.
