It’s been twenty-two years since an American man won an Open title and ranked in the top five. Given the unbroken line of brash, fiery superstars who have filled that role—McEnroe, Agassi, Roddick—U.S. fans expect our tennis players to win slams and win them loud. And so, many have spent the past decade waiting for the next showman to crash the gates and usher in a new era of American dominance.
It may surprise the casual fan, then, to look up and realize that the great modern hope for American tennis has already arrived in the form of 27-year-old Californian Taylor Fritz. Not one to seek the limelight, Fritz has been steadily making strides in his tennis for years. He’s quietly improved his movement and mentality, and honed his natural ball-striking into a truly elite arsenal from behind the baseline1. While pundits were busy speculating about which of Fritz’s contemporaries were the future of the sport, Fritz was racking up results. And now, Fritz begins the 2025 season as a Masters 1000 champion, Grand Slam finalist, Tour Finals finalist2, eight-time singles titleholder, Olympic medalist, Hugo Boss ambassador, and the No. 4 ranked player in the world.
Maybe it’s no wonder Fritz has been so successful while largely avoiding America’s breathless hype cycle—he was never interested in being a performer, but a champion. From winning the most recent United Cup to opening for BOSS at Milan Fashion Week, Taylor epitomizes understated style.
When I spoke with Fritz earlier this month, we discussed his evolving relationship with the crowd, fame, and rising expectations. While a showman wants to convert waves of crowd energy in big pressure moments3 and a stoic seems to operate beneath those tides4, Fritz exists somewhere in between. Under pressure, Fritz has a habit of visibly berating himself on court; he becomes animated, but his focus is inward. And while he doesn’t demand anything of the crowd, he also doesn’t harness them like he could5. Off court, he also seems to shy away from the spotlight, as when Indian Wells presented him with a mural of himself ahead of his 2023 title defense. In that scene, captured in the Netflix docuseries Break Point, Fritz crosses his arms and looks up bashfully at his own visage while speaking. He seems almost unnerved by this media attention, uncomfortable with the possibility of even more scrutiny or expectations. Reflecting on that moment, Fritz describes feeling a sense of vertigo and thinking, “There’s all these other guys I’m ranked higher than that are such good players.” But in the nearly two years since, Fritz has proven to the tennis world (and more importantly, to himself) that he deserves his place in the highest echelon of the sport. The avid gamer, who regularly streams his League of Legends matches on Twitch to thousands of followers, has leveled up all around and now there’s no going back. After climbing all the way to No. 4 in the world: “I earned my spot…I definitely feel like I do belong.”
What I’d originally interpreted as a resistance to attention was really a tendency toward introspection and humility. That’s not to say Fritz isn’t hungry to end the dry spell for U.S. men’s tennis. Of course, Fritz wants to deliver for America6. On the ambition that he and the rest of his American male cohort share: “I mean, we all wanna be that guy.” But he’s less interested in getting accolades than earning them. “I’m always looking for ways that I can improve my game, always analyzing matches that I lose, trying to figure out what things I realistically can be better at and I keep working hard and once I kind of do something and set, I guess, a new best for myself, I find it much easier to replicate and do it again…What I feel pressure-wise is what I’m putting on myself because I have very high expectations.”
In the same way he resisted considering himself a top player until he more firmly established his credentials, Fritz never wants to overstep when speaking on the sport either. “You know, I’m not gonna give my opinion on things too much when people don’t really care…but if it’s something that I feel like I have some way to contribute, then, of course, I’ll, you know, give my opinion.” Part of how Fritz has been able to more comfortably inhabit this new role as top player, is by positioning himself less as a master and more as an insider of the game.
A spicy soundbite will grab headlines; controversy works too7. But Fritz, instead, favors deep, thorough answers to issues facing the tennis community. As the tours have shifted their rules to allow for on-court coaching in recent years, Fritz has given studied responses to why he doesn’t think it benefits the game. In a post-match interview following the 2024 ATP Finals, Fritz explained that the way he saw it, teams had been blatantly violating the rule against coaching and, rather than regulate their inputs, tournaments were merely conceding to this misbehavior. “I think one thing that makes tennis such a unique sport, such a cool sport, is it’s genuinely as mental as it is physical. It’s a big, key part, in my opinion, to be able to figure things out and strategize by yourself,” he told reporters. Tennis is beautiful, he says, because it is elemental. It is one individual against another. Compare that, for example, to when the Australian Open changed its rules about crowd movement in 2024, and Jordan Thompson complained (embarrassingly) that it was “the wokest tournament ever.” Even on a platform as designed for misinformation and division as X, Fritz prefers to elucidate, recently explaining in great detail the ATP’s decision to revamp its points allocation system for challengers. Fritz is a clear-minded tennis policy wonk, who also happens to be one of the single best players in the world.
“A lot of times I see people arguing about tennis things,” says Fritz, “but I think I’m very good at having a non-biased opinion…A lot of the things that I touch on or say [are] in favor of something that I wouldn’t personally benefit from…I’d say I pride myself on just keeping things real.”
Handsome, 6’5”, with a thin build and full head of dark brown hair typically parted down the middle, framing his eyes—Fritz looks like a model. He seems entirely at home on the runway (as when he walked Hermés Men’s Winter 23 show). This makes him a natural fit for a high-fashion partner like Hugo Boss, with whom Fritz signed in 2024 after years of wearing Nike on court.
With Taylor’s input on sizing and material, BOSS has designed him a series of lowkey, simple, but exceptionally stylish on-court fits. So far eschewing noisy patterns8, BOSS and Fritz have favored solid blacks, whites, or a stately light purple, often monochromatic. The look is clean and sleek, elevated by the BOSS logo on chest and headband. Clearly, BOSS understands something innate about Fritz in this way—when the look is there, when the quality is there, when the game is there, you let it speak for itself.
Fashion allows Fritz another way to express himself and to invite others in: “I’ve always been very into fashion, to kind of have this off-court image and persona that people can see me, and connect to me when I’m not playing tennis. Fashion, modeling, stuff like that is a great way to show people me.” He jokes that when girlfriend Morgan Riddle, whom he credits with being instrumental in his style evolution, insists on a more polished look, “sometimes I ignore her advice.” Coming from Southern California, “I do gravitate to a more casual LA/San Diego style streetwear,” he says, “but I also like to dress up in a bit more classy style as well, which BOSS is an option for. I change it up for where I’m at and the mood.”
Looking ahead at the 2025 season, Fritz isn’t planning on changing much. “Things have been going so well, I don’t think there’s any reason to. I’m a big believer in not changing a winning strategy.” That makes sense, considering Fritz delivered a formidable 53-23 singles record in 2024, including going 17-4 at Grand Slams9. But one side-effect of all that winning is making deeper runs into tournaments and playing more matches. Accordingly, Fritz might look for more opportunities for rest in the coming year: “I’d love to shorten up the schedule here and there. Maybe play a little bit less.” Fritz is a grinder, not traditionally one to look for time away from the court. “That’s something I’m still learning about—how to feel like I have enough time to mentally reset between tournaments so I can show up motivated and ready to compete my best.”
Fritz is measured and reflective, and at this moment, the most confident he’s ever been in his game. Our leading American man is not the brazen entertainer we were anticipating. Instead, in being the quiet and steady striver, he is more the American champion than the showman could ever be.
Theresa Lin received her MFA in Fiction from Columbia University and teaches at The Cooper Union. Her writing has appeared in the LA Review of Books, Off Assignment, Random Sample Review, and Storm Cellar, among others. She is working on her first novel and is represented by Janklow & Nesbit.
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1Fritz’s serve is emblematic: he has increased his percentage of service games won every year since 2021 (from 82.1% to a fearsome 88.3%), and he belted 10.5 aces per match in 2024 (good for 6th in the ATP) with the fewest double faults per match of his career.
2 Unfortunately, there’s no better way to say this.
3 Think: Frances Tiafoe amping up the crowd after a big point at the U.S. Open.
4More like Fritz’s 2024 Paris Olympics doubles partner Tommy Paul, seemingly relaxed—maybe too relaxed—throughout the ups and downs of his matches.
5Fritz as the No. 1 American playing for the 2024 U.S. Open final—you have to imagine New Yorkers could have gotten rowdy if Fritz had steered them that way.
6There’s no way he would’ve gone straight from the Tour Finals to play Davis Cup after 11 months on tour if he didn’t care about the red, white, and blue.
7Nick Kyrgios’s one-sided (and largely misinformed) war on Jannik Sinner certainly provides him the steady stream of attention he craves.
8A restraint other brands could benefit from…
9Matching Roddick’s 17 wins at Slams in 2003.
