🔗 Share this article

I possess a few thoughts about the comments made by ESPN commentator Chris Fowler following Novak Djokovic's victory over the American player in the US Open last eight. Look – the athlete represents American, Fowler is American – and athletic competitions often encourage patriotic sentiment. Some disappointment was understandable. Instead, he invoked the continued absence of American men at the majors: not one of them has won a title since the last American champion in 2003, and he had been the last one standing in the tournament.

Everyone love a narrative, myself included. But really. Suppose Fritz defeated the legend for the initial occasion, force of nature Carlos Alcaraz was waiting in the next round, who he has never defeated in an competitive encounter. And if he’d someway gotten past that, it would have been defending champion Jannik Sinner, versus him Fritz had dropped 10 of the previous eleven sets. The two young stars had also split the previous seven major titles (and Alcaraz proceeded to defeat a fatigued Djokovic in the next round). Fritz said in post-match interviews following his defeat that he in fact liked his draw, because it presented the opportunity to beat the three best players in the world back-to-back. Fritz is more than justified to aspire to the achievement; an athlete is meant to have faith in themselves. But going into that Djokovic quarter-final who else sensibly had the drought of American champions on the brain?

Coco Gauff’s second serve the only thing between her and consistent victories

The American, twenty-eight, is placed number four in the global rankings entering this week’s year-end championships and has won his previous six encounters over No 3 the German with growing comfort. It's likely he could take that spot for himself in the coming years. But evidently that right now, that is as far as he can rise: Sinner and Alcaraz lie a chasm of performance metrics away. His elite serve and concussive strength on each forehand and reverse side are sufficiently enough to defeat the majority of rivals on the ATP tour. Against the handful of generational talents, however, he is often helpless. The past few years has seen the interesting rise of lanky, towering athletes who can nevertheless move around with the surprising quickness and fluidity of much shorter players. Fritz is 6ft 5ins and appears that way. His movement is rigid, as if he hasn't fully adapted to his limbs. So he seldom steal a point that the other player was controlling, and playing a soft shot versus him is typically a safe bet. That acts as a quite harsh limitation on his upside.

The American has made a several dramatic, improbable improvements over the years. Early on of the decade, he was hovering around the bottom of the world's best thirty. 24 months later, he was sniffing the top 10. The previous season, he unexpectedly exploded up to No 4 – and held the position. But the subsequent step, competing against and beating all-time-greats like Alcaraz, the Italian, and even a declining Serbian, is the highest of all. What could Fowler thinking? That Fritz, in 2025, was a serious threat to defeat them all back-to-back? That it was worth commenting on the ongoing slump of US male players lifting grand slams when Fritz had departed the US Open in the quarter-finals? The desperation is simply excessive and the respect for the difficulty of the challenge too little.

The American star achieved a personal best run to the Wimbledon last four in the summer.

The American's play in that exact last eight match ought to have been enough of an indication. The Serbian triumphed in four rounds, a win that only seemed tenuous for brief periods towards the conclusion, when Fritz had saved a few championship opportunities and had a chance to maintain serve for 5-5. The pair looked well-balanced during the rallies, with Fritz earning plenty of opportunities to win the opponent's serve. But the champion saved service break opportunity after service break opportunity, prolonging the run to the brink of agony. When Fritz eventually did convert a single of the chances at 5-5 in the middle stanza, he immediately played a terrible game to drop serve again; the Serbian had lulled him into a skirmish peripheral to the real battle and compelled him to expend excessive energy to win it. Facing set points in the last game, his primary delivery sailed to the sky. He prolonged the match two times on his second serve, but ultimately double-faulted. It was not a collapse, in my opinion, just a result of having to hit too many weaker deliveries.

The match was quite ironclad evidence that the American is not good enough to defeat any version of Djokovic, that lost to the Spaniard in the next round and did not particularly seem like he believed he could win. This is absolutely acceptable – the Serbian is the greatest of all time, and may not be at the height of his athletic abilities now, but has developed sufficient knowledge and strategic intelligence to make up for a significant portion of the decline. The problem is those who were anticipating Fritz to prevail, and pressuring him to achieve that, when he was yet to done anything that indicated he would.

Fritz is an asset to the circuit nonetheless. He’s a patient, reflective voice in press conferences, exceeding almost anyone on the men's tour aside from the Russian star, prepared to not just say how he feels or the strategy he felt determined a contest, but clarify it. That he should shoulder the majority of the responsibility for the United States not spawn a men's grand slam winner since Andy Roddick seems unjust. (Now that Ben Shelton is competing alongside him in the rankings, maybe they can share that load.)

Year-End Championships: Player Divisions

Jimmy Connors Division

• The Spanish phenom
• The American contender
• Alex de Minaur (Aus)
• Lorenzo Musetti (It)

Bjorn Borg Division

• Jannik Sinner (It)
• Alexander Zverev (Ger)
• The rising American
• The Canadian talent

“I’d probably think about it indefinitely if I fail to do it,” Fritz informed a journalist in the summer of claiming a grand slam. I hope he realizes that he’s not unsuccessful if he does not achieve that goal, that breaking through the Spanish and Italian's young, terrifying reign is actually highly improbable for all other players. {