Taylor Fritz had great ambitions on the eve of the US Open final, but he could not do much against a great Jannik Sinner. The American ace – who hoped to finally succeed Andy Roddick – played a decent match on the Arthur Ashe Stadium and took advantage of the support of the New York crowd, but his opponent was simply too superior.
Fritz never gave the feeling of being able to reverse the inertia of the match and the tension certainly did not help him at the beginning of the match (the American served very badly in the first set and suffered a break already in the first game). Taylor had a proud reaction mid-third and came close to extending the fourth-set challenge, but Jannik made the difference on that occasion and prevailed in three sets to win the second Major of his young career.
Fritz and Sinner have a fairly similar style of play, but the Italian ace has become much more complete in the last year and has more solutions. The American champion had to hope for a very negative performance of the world number 1, who is playing the best season of his career and has lost very few matches on the hard court.
The American ace was disappointed
Fritz was very disappointed at the end of the match and admitted that he did not play his best tennis, but promised to the fans that he will try to win the US Open in the future. In his first ever Grand Slam final Taylor was defeated three sets to zero by Jannik Sinner, who won the 2024 US Open losing two sets during the tournament. Fritz did not hide his great disappointment in the press conference for this defeat.
“It was a very complicated game for me – said Taylor -. I had a plan on what I wanted to do, but many parts did not go well. I didn’t hit the ball as well as I expected. I improved my service in the second set, in the first I suffered in this aspect, in the third everything started to go right, I improved with the right and I put myself in good position to win it, but he came back and closed. If my plan A doesn’t work, I’ll go to plan B, which is play a little safer. It works against most players but not against him”. He is asked if the semi-final win over Tiafoe in five sets could have had an impact on his performance: “I don’t think it had any impact. You can’t be fresh in a Slam final after 6 games won but I felt good”.
The American star does not hide his disappointment: “There are so many positive things to take away and when I take some time I will be happy to have reached the final. Right now I’m quite disappointed with how things went on the court, how I behaved and how I played. I would have liked to play better, give me a better chance. I feel the Americans wanted a champion who has been missing for a long time. I’m very sad about how I played. It’s like I let people down. Even though the most important thing is that I played well. It’s extremely comforting to have come this far playing well. I know there is a lot of room for improvement“. The American ace played a great tournament defeating very tough opponents like Italian Matteo Berrettini, German Alexander Zverev and his compatriot Frances Tiafoe during his run. The feeling is that he lacks another step to be able to win such important titles.
Taylor was dominated
Speaking with Eurosport after the 2024 US Open final, Nicolas Mahut reflected on the strategy adopted by Fritz: “I was thinking about it while watching the game. If I had been Fritz’s coach, I would have had a doubt. My player reached the US Open final by playing in a certain way that is very clearly insufficient against Sinner.
So is there anything else we try to do that might disturb my player? Or we hope for an improbable counter performance from Sinner. But playing like this: cadence without using angles, cushioning, for me he had almost no chance except to serve at a very high level, which he did not do on that first game. He played like on the rest of the tournament and was largely dominated.” The match was never really in question, with the Italian ace always in control of the rallies and the score. Fritz’s bad start helped make the game even less exciting.