America’s men’s grand slam drought is not Taylor Fritz’s burden to carry | Tennis

I would like to talk to ESPN anchor Chris Fowler about what he said after Novak Djokovic beat Taylor Fritzfor the 11th time in a row in the quarterfinals of the US Open. Look: Fritz is an American, Fowler is an American, and sports often lend themselves to nationalism. A little disappointment was in order. Fowler instead cited the American men's ongoing drought at major tournaments: none had lifted a trophy since Andy Roddick in 2003, and Fritz was the last man standing at the tournament.

We all love storytelling, including me. But come on. Even if Fritz beat Djokovic for the first time, the next round was waiting for the force of nature Carlos Alcaraz, whom Fritz has yet to defeat in an official match. And if he had somehow survived it, it would have been defending champion Jannik Sinner in the final, to whom Fritz lost 10 of the last 11 sets. Alcaraz and Sinner also shared the last seven major titles (with Alcaraz dispatching a weary Djokovic in the next round). After the loss, Fritz stated in the press that he really liked the draw because it offered the opportunity to beat three of the world's best players in a row. Fritz is more than entitled to strive for this; an athlete must believe in himself. But before Djokovic's quarterfinal, who else in their right mind was thinking about the American champions' drought?

Fritz, 28, is ranked fourth in the world entering this week's ATP World Tour Finals and has won his last six matches with ease over third-ranked Alexander Zverev. He'll probably be able to take that spot for himself in the future. But it is clear that this is now the limit he can rise to: Sinner and Alcaraz lie in the abyss of ranking points. Fritz's elite serve and stunning power on both the forehand and backhand are more than enough to dispatch most opponents on the ATP Tour. However, against a select few talents of a generation, Fritz is often helpless. The past few years have seen a curious rise in tall, lanky players who can nonetheless cover the court with alarming speed and fluidity associated with much shorter men. Fritz is 6'5″ and looks the part. His movements are stiff, as if he is still getting used to his legs. Thus, he will rarely steal a point that another player was dictating, and hitting him is usually a safe bet. This serves as a rather severe limitation on its potential.

Over the years, Fritz has made some impressive and incredible improvements. At the start of the decade he was circling the bottom of the top 30. Two years later he was already in the top 10. Last year he suddenly rose to fourth place – and held that place. But the next leap, mixed with all-time greats like Alcaraz, Sinner and even the declining Djokovic, will be the highest of them all. What was Fowler thinking? This Fritz in 2025 was a serious threat to defeat them all. back to back? It's worth commenting on the ongoing drought of American men winning major titles after Fritz left the US Open at quarterfinals? The thirst is just too strong and respect for the scale of the task is too little.

Fritz's performance in that same quarter-final should have been a sufficient indicator. Djokovic prevailed in four sets, a victory that only seemed slim for a few moments towards the end when Fritz survived a pair of match points and had a chance to hold on for a 5-5 tie. During the rallies the pair looked evenly matched and Fritz was given plenty of opportunities to break through. But Djokovic saved break after break, extending the series into agony. When Fritz finally took advantage of one of the opportunities at 5-5 in the second set, he immediately played a terrible game and gave up serve again; Djokovic lulled him into a skirmish that was secondary to the real battle, forcing him to expend too much energy to win it. In the final game, having lost match points, Fritz's first serve skyrocketed. He extended the match twice on his second serve, but eventually double faulted. I didn't think it was a choke, but just a result of having to make too many second serves.

The match was irrefutable proof that Fritz was not good enough to beat any version of Djokovic, who lost to Alcaraz in the next round and never really looked like he thought he could win. This is completely normal: Djokovic is the best player of all time, and he may no longer be at his physical peak, but he has enough experience and tactical skill to compensate for some of the decline. The problem is those who expected Fritz to win and forced him to do it, although he had not yet done anything that would suggest his victory.

However, Fritz is a valuable asset to the tour. In press conferences he has a patient and thoughtful voice, more than anyone else in the ATP except Daniil Medvedev, willing to not only say what he feels or what tactic he thinks decided the outcome of a match, but to explain it. That he should bear the brunt of the blame for America's failure to produce a major men's champion because Andy Roddick feels unfair. (Now that Ben Shelton is hanging out with him in the ratings, maybe they can share the burden.)

“I’ll probably think about it forever if I don’t do it,” Fritz told Donald McRae in June, victory at the major. I hope he realizes that he's not a failure if he doesn't achieve this goal, that breaking through Alcaraz and the young, terrifying Sinner Empire is actually extremely unlikely for everyone else. Fritz has never been in a position where he must won a major and didn't win – he lost the only final of a major he had made so far in straight sets to Sinner, and his run to the semi-finals at Wimbledon this year, his best result to boot, ended against Alcaraz in a very tight four sets (Ginner waited again in the final). Fritz has never had a choke on his conscience as horrendous as Guillermo Coria's collapse against Gaston Gaudio in the 2004 Roland Garros final, nor a single major tournament where he looked like the best player only to fall sharply behind.

Fritz's extremely high standards for himself probably account for much of the feeling he expressed to McRae, but I suspect it was also partly due to the stifling, inescapable pressure of becoming America's next golden tennis player. Winning a major is a rare thing, and even rarer in this age of hyper-talented players. Any pressure on Fritz to achieve this must come entirely from within.