Taylor Fritz returns U.S. clay shade after dethroning Monte Carlo champion Stefanos Tsitsipas

WATCH: Fritz visited the Tennis Channel Live Desk after reaching his first clay-court Masters 1000 semifinal.

The rise of U.S. men’s tennis has been one of the season’s biggest storylines, and now they’re coming for clay.

Taylor Fritz returned fire from double-defending Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters champion Stefanos Tsitsipas when he dethroned the former world No. 3 in straight sets, engaging in some light shade on the camera lens after the 6-2, 6-4 win.

“I don't want people to, like, think there is some crazy like beef or something,” Fritz said in his post-match press conference. “Like it's more just like a joke, like what he wrote the other day...”

What Tsitsipas wrote after defeating Chilean Nicolas Jarry was a crack at the lack of clay courts on U.S. soil: “Clay court in the U.S. is like a unicorn on a skateboard.”

“I think maybe people think I write something back on the camera because I'm offended or I'm upset,” Fritz added. “Not at all. Like, I don't care at all. I guess people don't know me. I'm like the hardest person to like offend or upset. Like I don't care.

“I just thought that like kind of saying something back. Obviously, he knew that he might play me. I thought just writing something back was funny, like there is no, like I'm not trying to insult him. I just thought it was funny.”

Indeed, Americans and have notoriously underperformed at this time of year, with Andre Agassi remaining the last U.S. man to win Roland Garros in 1999, something Tsitsipas anecdotally chalks up to lack of access.

“I have had this discussion with a friend of mine recently about clay courts in the U.S., and we were talking about it, how everything is just promoted through hard courts, everything is played on hard courts,” he said on Friday. “I'm not some sort of advocate that I want to be going out there promoting red clay, but I would certainly like to see it in more places around the world, maybe.”

The United States Tennis Association has looked to reverse that reputation with the proliferation of green clay and its installation of six red clay courts at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida—with conditions meant to mirror what is experienced at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome.

“Most of the camps we have throughout the year, we try to throw them on clay and red clay in particular,” said USTA National Women’s Coach Kathy Rinaldi, who is a former Rome champion herself. “It’s a surface that teaches the youngsters so much, and I believe it helps shape their identities as players: strategizing, problem-solving. That’s what red clay does, so we really like to throw them on clay as much as possible.”

That strategy began to pay dividends in 2015, when Fritz and Tommy Paul competed in an all-American junior Roland Garros final, and now in Monte Carlo, where the former is into his first clay-court Masters 1000 semifinal.

“I obviously played a lot on green clay in the U.S. when I was younger and I hated it,” said Fritz, who next faces 2021 Monte Carlo runner-up Andrey Rublev. “First time I came to Europe and played on red clay, immediately I was like, ‘Oh, my God, this is so much better.’”