For the first time in 15 years, an American is guaranteed to be in a Grand Slam final. Will it be Taylor Fritz or Frances Tiafoe? It doesn’t matter, as long as he wins the title on Sunday.
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Sport in Seriousness
No one, it seems, is more tired of Andy Roddick’s name being mentioned over and over again this time of year than Andy Roddick.
The former tennis player and podcaster is the last American to win a Grand Slam singles title. Since his retirement 12 years ago, no one else has come even close to playing the tournament’s final match with the trophy in sight. And at the US Open in particular, Roddick’s 2003 triumph is usually cited not as a great memory for American men’s tennis, but as an annual reminder of how dry the well has run since he retired from the game.
And he has had enough.
“I want this to stop,” Roddick said on his latest episode of “Served with Andy Roddick.”
“I’ve gotten more juice out of the press than any human being has ever gotten out of anything. I’d like nothing more than for an American to win on Sunday. I hate it, I get that nervous feeling every time they have to answer for it. I (expletive) hate it for them. I want them to have it.”
For the first time in 15 years, there is at least a chance that Roddick will no longer have to bear this burden.
Friday’s US Open semifinal between No. 12 seed Taylor Fritz and No. 20 seed Frances Tiafoe will be a historic moment in this era of men’s tennis. Regardless of who wins, an American flag will be on the scoreboard at a Grand Slam final.
It’s about damn time.
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Roddick is not too far off the mark – his remarkable career includes 32 ATP titles, a number one ranking, five Grand Slam finals and would have been even better had he not been tormented by a personal tormentor named Roger Federer. But 21 years is long overdue for a one-time Grand Slam winner to occupy so much space in the tennis discourse.
In a country of 333 million people that has managed to produce top champions in almost every other major sport – including women’s tennis, incidentally – it is both remarkable and unacceptable that this player without a Grand Slam title is now old enough to drink a beer.
Can’t we just get this over with for the sake of everyone and move on? It doesn’t matter who. Taylor? Frances? Sort it out between yourselves on Friday and then you can get it on Sunday.
At this point, it’s not just about American pride. It’s about making sure literally none of you — including Ben Shelton, Sebastian Korda, Tommy Paul, and whoever comes after them — ever have to answer that question again.
“We talk about it openly,” Tiafoe said after beating Grigor Dimitrov in the quarterfinals. “We’ve all been knocking on the door. Taylor has been in the top 10, he’s been out of the top 10, this time last year I was in the top 10. Ben is so damn good. It’s just a matter of time.”
“…And the game is open. It’s not like it used to be when you got to the quarterfinals, played against Rafa (Nadal) and looked at the flights. That’s just the reality. Now it’s totally different, and nobody is unbeatable, especially later in the season when guys are maybe a little bit cooked, not as fresh and vulnerable. It’s pretty exciting.”
I’ll be honest here: While it’s true that the entire dynamic of men’s tennis has changed since Nadal and Federer got too old and Novak Djokovic is not far behind them, I didn’t think that one of the Americans from the Tiafoe/Fritz generation would be the one to end that streak. The gap between their level of success and the top group, now occupied by younger stars like Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, just seemed a bit too big.
And maybe it is. Although Alcaraz had to leave the US Open early, Sinner is still in the game and is aiming for his second Grand Slam title of the year. There is no question that he is a clear favorite to win the title.
But at this point, it’s not inconceivable that Fritz or Tiafoe will win the thing. They’re both playing great tennis. Both have already won against Sinner. And whoever comes out of their semifinal on Sunday will have a whole stadium – actually a whole country – behind them.
“It would be great for the fans to have the guarantee that one of us will reach the final,” said Fritz after his quarter-final victory.
The American fans deserve it. After American men have made so much history, from Arthur Ashe to Jimmy Connors to John McEnroe to the rivalry between Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras, it has taken a long time for something like this to happen. Far too long.
The reasons for this 20-year downturn have been analyzed as intensively as the Zapruder film, and there is no shortage of theories and excuses. As the sport became more international, Americans (and Australians, for that matter) had less of an advantage. Europeans grow up on clay, and so learn how to set up points better than the serve-and-forehand style that dominates American tennis. The USTA development system did not do enough, or perhaps even too much. Tennis costs too much, so the best young athletes move on to other sports.
Or maybe it was simply because there wasn’t much room for American talent when three of the greatest players of all time were competing at the same time and winning almost everything.
But eventually the tide will turn. Maybe, hopefully, this weekend. And if it does, it will be a story that shows why American tennis still has the potential to be relevant.
Fritz was born for this. He is the son of two former tennis professionals and was prepared from day one to win major titles.
Tiafoe is the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone and started playing the sport because his father was a janitor at a tennis facility in College Park, Maryland.
In this country, both paths to sporting success are possible. And on final Sunday, one of them will come closer to ultimate sporting glory than any American since Roddick lost a nerve-wracking five-set final to Federer at Wimbledon in 2009.
It’s time for new milestones in American tennis, rather than clinging to trophies won more than two decades ago. Even Roddick agrees with that.
Follow Dan Wolken on social media @DanWolken
