Taylor Fritz on the 21-year U.S. men's major-title drought: “We all want to be the one to end it”

NEW YORK—“I came in really focused, felt like I was just locked in every point, ready to go,” Taylor Fritz said after his 6-3, 7-6 (1), 6-1 win over Matteo Berrettini on Wednesday night in Louis Armstrong Stadium.

Those words were, if anything, something of an understatement. This had to be one of the cleanest and most thorough performances of Fritz’s Grand Slam career. And while it was only a second-round match, it came against a high-quality opponent.

Beforehand, Fritz predicted that the match would be filled with “a lot of serves, and a lot of holds,” and that it would be decided by just a few shots, hit at the right times. Once he walked on the court, though, Fritz seemed determined to make sure it wouldn’t play out like that at all.

From the start, the match felt like an ambush. Fritz crowded the baseline on his returns and ground strokes, and put Berrettini back on his heels. He broke him right off the bat with a well-disguised forehand drop shot, followed by a well-measured backhand pass. Then he served the Italian off the court for the next three sets. Fritz won a sky-high 90 percent of his first-serve points, and an even more out-of-this-world 87 percent of his second-serve points. Berrettini mustered no break points, and managed to win just eight of 71 points on Fritz’s serve.

Berrettini, who was wearing leg tape, struggled to get his serve going early, and offered little resistance late. But this still felt like the type of commanding Grand Slam win that we’ve wanted to see from Fritz over the years. It was 12 months ago at the Open that he began to raise his level and improve his results at the majors. He made the quarters in New York for the first time in 2023, and has done the same this year at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

“I had really bad Grand Slam results here,” Fritz said. “I needed so bad to make a run here. Since then, I think that’s really helped a lot.”

Fritz capped off a strong day for American men. Ben Shelton was at his bullet-serving best in a win over Roberto Bautista Agut. Frances Tiafoe wore down Alexander Shevchenko. Brandon Nakashima won his sixth set in a row this week. On Thursday, three of their countrymen—Alex Michelsen, Tommy Paul and Sebastian Korda—will try to join them in the third round. Only Michelsen, who plays Jannik Sinner, won’t be favored.

Fritz has already heard questions this week about the Grand Slam drought, dating back to 2003, among U.S. men.

“We all want to be the one to end it,” he said. “But we don’t really talk about that. We’ve talked about the fact that we’ve got five guys in the Top 20. We’ve talked about how we just have a lot of good players.”

The question will be asked again if no American man wins the Open—and it will take a massive breakthrough for that to happen. But Fritz is right, the number of guys in the Top 20, and the number of guys making their way through the draw this week shouldn’t be seen as a consolation prize. There’s a lot to watch for U.S. fans right now.

How can one of them end the drought? Fritz wonders that himself.

“I don’t know if I’ve really learned anything,” he said with a laugh this week, when he was asked how you go about winning the Open.

“I had [a] first-round loss two years ago, and then last year I was as stressed as I’ve ever been playing a tournament, because I didn’t want that to happen again.”

Instead of that stress hurting him, though, he made the quarters and played well the whole way.

“It’s just, like, so random,” he says.

“It’s just about taking it one match at a time, and doing your best to care, but at the same time not care, is what I like to say.”