WHAT HAPPENED: That Taylor Fritz is even in the 2021 US Open draw is as much a testament to a doggedly determined athlete as it is to the miracles of modern medicine.
Consider where the Californian was in June; buckled into a wheelchair on the crushed brick of Roland Garros, unable to walk off the court under his own power following a second-round loss to Dominik Koepfer. He had felt a pop in his right knee, which would later be diagnosed as a torn meniscus.
Fritz, 23, would undergo the knife, yet somehow return to the court less than a month later at Wimbledon, his knee holding up on the slippery lawns of the All England Club long enough for him to reach the third round. The risks were obvious, but Fritz wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.
There was certainly no sign of the injury on Day 2 at the US Open, not even any knee tape. The American, winless in three previous encounters with 14th seed Alex de Minaur of Australia, reversed the trend in Louis Armstrong Stadium with a convincing 7-6, 6-2, 1-6, 6-4 triumph, moving into the second round for the second straight year.
“He does a lot of things that bother me, but I knew I was going to have to serve really well, compete well, just attack, attack, attack, never give him a chance to move me around,” said Fritz, who finished with 10 aces in the three-hour-long tussle. “I stayed aggressive and played the big points well.”
Since making his US Open debut in 2017, de Minaur had improved with each and every return to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The top-ranked Australian man posted first-, third-, fourth- and quarterfinal-round showings in succession. But Fritz cut his stay short this time around.
It was de Minaur who looked to be in control early on, opening the match with a service break. But Fritz would bring the first set back on serve at 3-all, then go on to take the stanza in a tiebreak, 7-4.
This was new territory for Fritz. Those three prior meetings? He had never so much as taken a set. But he rode that momentum into the second, up three breaks at 5-love before his opponent could get on the board.
There was a glimmer of hope for de Minaur in the third. An untimely double fault from his opponent at 1-2, 30-40 gave him some breathing room and he would race through the set to narrow the margin.
Both players picked up their service games in the fourth set. There were no break points through the first nine games, until Fritz found his opportunity with de Minaur serving to stay in the match at 4-5.
“On some of the points in the fourth set, I thought, ‘I can’t get the ball past this guy,” said Fritz. “I had to just keep trying. I’m so stubborn, I just wanted to keep hitting it harder and harder and get it past him. I didn’t give up and I got through.”
De Minaur owns two titles on the year (Antalya, Eastbourne), but never really found his footing at the majors in 2021. He amassed 53 unforced errors on Tuesday, and managed to convert just four of 13 break-point opportunities.
WHAT IT MEANS: For his efforts, Fritz will next meet fellow Californian Jenson Brooksby. The 20-year-old burst onto the scene this summer when he reached the Newport final, and subsequently took down Kevin Anderson, Frances Tiafoe and Felix Auger-Aliassime en route to the Washington semis.
MATCH POINT: In 2019, Fritz became the youngest American (21) in the Top 25 since Andy Roddick in 2004.
