US Men's Grand Slam Drought Isn't Fritz's Burden to Carry

I have a few thoughts regarding the remarks made by the sports network broadcaster Chris Fowler after the Serbian champion's win over Taylor Fritz during the US Open last eight. Consider – the athlete represents American, Fowler is American – and athletic competitions often lend themselves to nationalism. Some letdown would have been understandable. Instead, Fowler invoked the continued drought of US male players at grand slam tournaments: none of them had lifted a title since Andy Roddick in 2003, and he had been the last one standing in the tournament.

We all enjoy a narrative, me too. But really. Suppose the American defeated Djokovic for the first time, force of nature Carlos Alcaraz was waiting in the next round, whom Fritz has yet to beat in an official match. And had he somehow survived that, it would have been defending champion the Italian, versus him the American had lost 10 of the last 11 sets. Alcaraz and Sinner had also divided the last seven major titles (and the Spaniard proceeded to defeat a fatigued Serbian in the subsequent match). Fritz said in press following his defeat that he actually liked his path, because it offered the chance to beat the three best players in the sport in succession. Fritz is well within his right to aim for the achievement; an athlete is supposed to believe in themselves. But entering that Serbian quarter-final who else sensibly had the lack of US winners on the brain?

Fritz, twenty-eight, is ranked number four in the world entering the upcoming year-end championships and has won his previous six matches over No 3 the German with increasing ease. It's likely he might claim that position for himself in the future. But evidently that right now, that is as high as he can climb: The Italian and Spaniard sit a chasm of performance metrics away. Fritz’s top-class serve and concussive power on both front side and reverse side are sufficiently adequate to dispose of most opponents on the ATP tour. Against the handful of once-in-a-lifetime players, though, he is often helpless. The last several seasons has witnessed the interesting rise of lanky, towering athletes who can nevertheless move around with the surprising quickness and fluidity of much shorter men. Fritz is six-foot-five and appears that way. His footwork is stiff, as if he’s still getting used to his legs. So he’ll rarely steal a point that the other player was controlling, and hitting a soft shot against him is usually a reliable tactic. That acts as a quite harsh restriction on his potential.

The American has made a several dramatic, improbable improvements over the years. At the beginning of the decade, he was hovering around the bottom of the world's best thirty. Two years later, he was sniffing the top 10. Last year, he unexpectedly exploded to fourth place – and held the spot. But the subsequent step, mixing it up with and defeating all-time-greats like the young Spaniard, the Italian, and even a declining Serbian, is the toughest of all. What could the commentator have been thinking? That Fritz, in 2025, was a serious threat to defeat them all back-to-back? That it was appropriate commenting on the ongoing slump of American men winning grand slams when he had exited the New York major in the quarter-finals? The desperation is simply too much and the appreciation for the magnitude of the task insufficient.

The American's performance in that exact last eight match ought to have been enough of an indication. Djokovic won in four rounds, a victory that only felt uncertain for brief periods towards the conclusion, when the American had survived a couple match points and had a chance to maintain serve for 5-5. The pair appeared evenly matched during the exchanges, with Fritz earning plenty of chances to break. But Djokovic saved break point after break point, extending the streak to the point of frustration. When Fritz eventually did claim one of the chances at 5-5 in the second set, he immediately played a terrible game to lose his own serve again; the Serbian had lulled him into a battle peripheral to the real battle and compelled him to expend excessive effort to win it. Facing set points in the final game, his primary delivery floated to the sky. He extended the contest twice on his backup delivery, but ultimately double-faulted. It was not a choke, in my opinion, just a result of having to hit an excessive number of second serves.

The match was quite ironclad evidence that the American is not good enough to defeat any form of Djokovic, that was defeated by Alcaraz in the next round and did not particularly seem like he thought he could triumph. This is perfectly acceptable – Djokovic is the best player ever, and might not be at the height of his physical powers anymore, but has acquired enough knowledge and strategic intelligence to make up for a significant portion of the drop-off. The issue is those who were anticipating Fritz to prevail, and putting pressure on him to achieve that, when he was had not accomplished anything that suggested he could.

The American is an valuable contributor to the circuit nonetheless. He’s a patient, reflective presence in press conferences, exceeding virtually everyone on the men's tour aside from Daniil Medvedev, prepared to not just say how he feels or the strategy he felt determined a contest, but explain it. That he ought to shoulder the majority of the blame for the United States failing to spawn a men's grand slam winner since Andy Roddick feels unjust. (Now that the fellow American is competing alongside him in the rankings, perhaps they can divide that burden.)

“I would likely dwell on it indefinitely if I don’t do it,” the American told a journalist in June of winning a grand slam. I hope he realizes that he’s not a failure if he does not achieve that goal, that breaking through the Spanish and Italian's dominant, formidable reign is in fact highly improbable for everybody else. {