NEW YORK — Heading into Wimbledon, Taylor Fritz said he feels men's tennis is more open now than it was in the Big Three era.
“Just any one of them played incredibly well,” he said of Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
“We were young and not as good as we are now. We hoped that they would have a bad day and that we'd have a good day,” Fritz said. “Now the top 15 is determined by who's playing better.”
“It's exciting for all of us because we know we just need to get two weeks or 10 days to play some really high-level tennis and make the most of the opportunity.”
The US Open proved Fritz right and wrong: early losses to Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz gave hope to the rest of the field, but the tournament ended status quo as world number one Jannik Sinner defeated Fritz 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 to win his second Grand Slam title of the year.
The other two majors in 2024 will be won by the 21-year-old Alcaraz, but he and the 23-year-old Sinner have won five of the past six Grand Slams. They are at the forefront of majors with the efficiency of the Big Three, and they are still fairly young.
But their dominance feels different to the rest of the locker room. After Francis Tiafoe lost to Fritz in the semifinals on Friday, he said the tournament was a “big” sign for other players that a Grand Slam title is within reach. “It definitely shows you can win it,” he said. “The match is open. Even with Alcaraz and Sinner and the others, it's not what it was before.”
Alexander Zverev, who sits just above Alcaraz at No. 2 in the world but has not had as much success as Alcaraz, offered a similar sentiment ahead of Wimbledon.
Part of that sentiment comes from the fact that even though they've won most of the Grand Slams, Sinner and Alcaraz still aren't good enough to reach the semifinals or finals at every big tournament — as Alcaraz proved with his second-round loss here — and Djokovic is still very talented but more shaky than he used to be, offering a ray of hope to the field after his worst Grand Slam year since 2017 (second-worst since 2009).
Fritz said Sunday that it was encouraging to reach the finals without having to play a match. that good.
“I don't feel like I've played particularly great tennis the last two weeks, so I think it's a real positive for me,” he said. “Maybe I'm opening myself up a little bit. I don't think I have to play incredible to be able to go far or compete in tournaments.”
“If I play good tennis, I think I'm good enough to win at that level,” Taylor Fritz said. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Guys like Fritz haven't yet made the kind of scars that they did with Alcaraz and Sinner with the Big Three, and even if they lose to them, they feel like they at least have a chance to win.
In the Big Three, players like Fritz often go into matches with hope rather than expectation. In contrast, before facing Sinner, Fritz said, “I feel like I can play well and win. If I play good tennis, I feel like I can win at that level.”
In the end, Sinner was just too strong, and Fritz admitted after the match, “If I play good tennis now, I think I can go a little higher, maybe in the quarterfinals. I still think you have to play your best to beat the best players.”
And that's the problem: For a player like Fritz to win a Grand Slam, he'll probably have to face Sinner, Alcaraz and Djokovic. And while this tournament showed that players outside the elite bracket might have more of a chance to reach the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals, none of them recorded a breakthrough win against a top-three player.
Alexei Popyrin, who beat Djokovic, is ranked one or two places below the main group of challengers, and Botic van de Zantschulp, who beat Alcaraz, is unlikely to be at the forefront of a Grand Slam anytime soon.
But Fritz came out of the tournament feeling a bit more at home in the game. He said after his loss to Sinner that he could only win what was in front of him, and his confidence seemed boosted after surviving a tense and somewhat bizarre semifinal on Friday against his good friend and compatriot Tiafoe.
There has always been a race between those two and other Americans to see who would reach a Grand Slam final first, and Fritz did it, but he doesn't think he played his best, which bodes well for him heading into the Australian Open in January.
But on Sunday, Fritz was reminded that he's still a long way from reaching that final stage. He said Plan B — keeping working hard — works for most players, but not for those at the top level. He knows he has to work harder on his game to take the next step.
Because while the path to the semifinals and finals may be getting easier, as long as Alcaraz and Sinner are performing well, the chasing teams still have a ways to go.
(Top photo: Kena Betancur/AFP)
