Taylor Fritz set to rise to No. 7 and become highest-ranked American man since 2011

American Taylor Fritz won his opening match in Dallas on Thursday night, defeating countryman Jack Sock, 7-6 (5), 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals of the ATP 250 indoor hard-court event.

But no matter how he does this week, he’s guaranteed some good news after the tournament—he’s projected to rise from No. 8 to a new career-high of No. 7, as per the ATP’s official live rankings.

That’ll make the 25-year-old the highest-ranked American man in more than a decade, since the week of September 19th, 2011, to be exact, when Mardy Fish was No. 7 on the ATP rankings.

Since then, Fritz is one of three American men who’ve been as high as No. 8—Sock got there in 2017, and John Isner got there in 2018—but none of them went higher than that, until now.

And Fritz is determined to keep improving.

“I just need to keep working on the things I need to work on to get better, that got me to this point,” he said in his on-court interview after his victory over Sock. “I always expect a lot of myself and put a lot of pressure on myself, but I just need to keep working and keep improving, and hopefully the results will come.”

Fritz has had a breakthrough last 12 months, highlighted by three titles—his first Masters 1000 at Indian Wells, an ATP 500 in Tokyo and an ATP 250 in Eastbourne. He also reached his first major quarterfinal at Wimbledon, as well as the semis of the ATP Finals.

And in Dallas, he’s now through to the quarterfinals or better at an ATP event for the ninth time in the last 12 months.

The 56-minute first set could have gone either way on Thursday night—the two held all the way through to the tie-break, and even after Fritz went up a mini-break, Sock got it right back and was within two points of the set at 5-all before Fritz closed it out.

Fritz then got the only break of the match in the very first game of the second set and the two went into a holding pattern again from there, until Fritz ultimately served the match out.

“I thought I played pretty well,” said Fritz, who didn’t face a break point the entire match. “He served well, and when I got chances on his serve, he played them really well. I protected my serve well.”

Up next for Fritz in the quarterfinals will be another American, Marcos Giron, who defeated Germany's Oscar Otte, 6-4, 6-3.

It will be a revenge mission for Fritz: Giron won their last meeting in the same round of this same event a year ago, 6-4, 3-6, 7-6 (3).