🔗 Share this article American Male Grand Slam Dry Spell Is Not Fritz's Responsibility to Bear I have some opinions about that comments made by the sports network commentator a well-known announcer following the Serbian champion's victory over the American player in the US Open last eight. Look – the athlete represents American, Fowler is American – and athletic competitions frequently lend themselves to patriotic sentiment. A little bit of letdown would have been understandable. Rather, Fowler invoked the ongoing drought of US male players at the majors: none of them had lifted a title since the last American champion in 2003, and he had been the final representative in the competition. Everyone love a narrative, me too. But come on. Suppose the American had beaten Djokovic for the initial occasion, force of nature the Spanish star was waiting in the following match, who he has yet to beat in an official match. And had he someway survived that, it would have been defending champion Jannik Sinner, against whom the American had dropped 10 of the previous eleven sets. Alcaraz and Sinner had also divided the last seven grand slams (plus the Spaniard proceeded to thrash a tired Serbian in the subsequent match). He said in press after the loss that he actually preferred his draw, because it offered the chance to defeat the top three competitors in the sport in succession. Fritz is more than within his right to aspire to the accomplishment; an athlete is supposed to believe in themselves. But going into that Serbian quarter-final who else sensibly had the lack of American champions in mind? Coco Gauff’s second serve the sole barrier between her and sustained success Fritz, 28, is placed fourth in the world entering this week’s ATP World Tour Finals and has secured his last six encounters over third-ranked Alexander Zverev with increasing ease. It's likely he could claim that position for himself in the coming years. But evidently that at present, that is as far as he can climb: The Italian and Spaniard lie a chasm of performance metrics away. Fritz’s elite delivery and concussive strength on each front side and backhand are more than adequate to defeat the majority of rivals on the professional circuit. When facing the handful of generational talents, though, Fritz is frequently helpless. The past few seasons has seen the curious emergence of lanky, towering athletes who can nevertheless cover the court with the surprising speed and grace of much shorter men. Fritz is six-foot-five and looks it. His footwork is stiff, as if he’s still getting used to his limbs. So he seldom win a rally that the other player was dictating, and playing a drop shot versus him is typically a reliable tactic. That acts as a quite harsh limitation on his potential. The American has made a several significant, unexpected advancements throughout his career. Early on of the ten-year period, he was hovering around the lower end of the world's best thirty. 24 months after, he was sniffing the top 10. The previous season, he suddenly surged to No 4 – and held the position. But the next leap, mixing it up with and defeating all-time-greats like the young Spaniard, the Italian, and including a aging Djokovic, is the highest of all. What could Fowler thinking? That the American, in 2025, was a serious threat to beat them all back-to-back? That it was appropriate mentioning the continuing slump of American men winning grand slams when Fritz had exited the US Open in the quarter-finals? The desperation is simply too much and the respect for the difficulty of the challenge too little. Taylor Fritz made a personal best advancement to the All England Club semi-finals in July. The American's performance in that very last eight match ought to have been sufficient of an sign. Djokovic won in four rounds, a win that only seemed uncertain for moments towards the very end, when Fritz had survived a few championship opportunities and had a opportunity to maintain serve for 5-5. The pair looked well-balanced during the exchanges, with Fritz creating numerous chances to win the opponent's serve. But the champion rescued service break opportunity after break point, extending the run to the brink of frustration. When he eventually did claim one of the chances at 5-5 in the second set, he promptly played a terrible service game to drop serve again; the Serbian had drawn him into a battle secondary to the main contest and forced him to use excessive energy to win it. Facing match points in the last game, his first serve sailed to the sky. He extended the contest twice on his backup delivery, but finally double-faulted. It wasn’t a choke, I didn’t think, only a consequence of needing to hit an excessive number of second serves. The contest was fairly compelling evidence that Fritz is not good enough to defeat any version of the Serbian, who lost to the Spaniard in the following match and did not especially seem like he believed he could triumph. This is perfectly acceptable – the Serbian is the greatest of all time, and might not be at the height of his athletic abilities anymore, but has developed enough experience and strategic intelligence to compensate for a significant portion of the drop-off. The issue is the individuals who were expecting Fritz to win, and putting pressure on him to achieve that, when he was yet to accomplished anything that indicated he could. Fritz is an asset to the circuit regardless. He’s a calm, thoughtful voice in media sessions, exceeding almost everyone on the men's tour aside from the Russian star, willing to not only express how he feels or the tactic he believed determined a contest, but explain it. That he ought to shoulder the majority of the responsibility for America failing to produce a men's grand slam winner since Andy Roddick feels unfair. (Since Ben Shelton is rubbing shoulders with him in the rankings, perhaps they can share that burden.) ATP Finals: Player Divisions American legend Division The Spanish phenom The American contender Alex de Minaur (Aus) The Italian stylist Swedish icon Group The Italian champion The German powerhouse The rising American The Canadian talent “I’d probably dwell on it forever if I fail to do it,” Fritz told a journalist in June of winning a major. I hope he realizes that he’s not a failure if he doesn’t fulfill that objective, that breaking through the Spanish and Italian's young, terrifying empire is in fact highly unlikely for all other players. {