There is no feeling quite like it, no words more impressive on a resume than “US Open champion.” Very few know that feeling, if only because so few have the means to lift themselves into that rarified air. Winning seven matches may not seem like all that much, but winning seven matches in the heat of the New York summer, before the world’s most demanding fans, against the world’s greatest players is this sport’s ultimate test. When you’ve passed it, you are a champion in the truest sense of the word.
The curtain comes down this afternoon on the 2024 US Open, with a men’s final that features two men who both fit that singular description—top seeded Jannik Sinner and top-ranked American Taylor Fritz.
After a bruising two weeks in which 126 others fell by the wayside, this day will feature a final showdown between two proven talents—each with just a little more left to prove. At day’s end, one player will own the stage—and tennis’ toughest title. With so much on the line, and so much talent between the lines, this final act promises to close the Open in fittingly high style.
No. 1 seed Sinner earned this tournament’s top line with a bottom line that this year includes five singles titles—including his first career major crown at January’s Australian Open. His five titles and 34 hard-court wins this year are both tops on the men’s tour. The 23-year-old Italian arrived in Flushing on fire, having taken down Alexander Zverev in the semis and Frances Tiafoe in the final to win the hard-court Cincinnati event. Sinner’s flame has only brightened here on the hard floors of Flushing, as he’s raced through this draw and reached his second career Slam final with the loss of just two sets along the way. Across two weeks that have been a fortnightmare for many of the guys with numbers next to their names, No. 1 Sinner has been the one consistently-reliable element, his talent and toughness carrying him from the top line to the finish line.
Now poised to become the first Italian man ever to win a US Open singles title, Sinner also could become just the third man in the Open era to win his first two major titles in the same calendar year. Only Jimmy Connors, who won the Aussie Open, Wimbledon and the US Open in 1974, and Guillermo Vilas, who won the French and US Open in 1977 have achieved that feat.
To get there, the top seed will have to find a way to get past Fritz, who’s been particularly brilliant in blasting his way into his first-ever second-Sunday showing at a Slam. Four times before, the 26-year-old American had reached the quarterfinals of a major—including here last year—but he’d never been able to move past that point. But throughout this Flushing fortnight, the top-ranked American has been the very definition of forward motion, playing his power game with remarkable precision while showcasing a trademark toughness and irrepressible cool that plays particularly well inside the domed pressure cooker that is Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Fritz has planted some rather large seeds on his way to this day—including No. 8 Casper Ruud in Round 4 and No. 4 Zverev in the quarters. But his semifinal win over compatriot Tiafoe in a most memorable Friday night semfinal fight may have been, if not his best effort, the best indication yet that Fritz is ready to claim his spot in this sport’s upper echelon. In that match, Fritz erased a two-sets-to-one deficit against the huge-hitting Tiafoe, continually raising his game until he was completely out of reach, wearing down one of the sport's fittest competitors and breaking his countryman three times in the fifth set to score a decisive 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win.
In the swirl and swelter of Friday night, Fritz refused to wilt, his fitness, fire and focus the difference is separating himself from his determined opponent to become the first American man to reach a US Open final since Andy Roddick in 2006. This afternoon, he has the chance to become the first U.S. male to deliver a title here since Roddick finished first in 2003. This close to history, it's hard to imagine that Fritz will be in any way overwhelmed by either opponent or occasion.
The two men have split a pair of career meetings, both on the hard courts of Indian Wells, with Sinner winning in the quarters there last year and Fritz in the fourth round in 2021. This meeting has all the makings of memorable, and if Fritz can sustain the ethereal level of play and poise he’s demonstrated to this point, this title is well within his reach. I think he can—and will. In a ferocious four, Fritz is the 2024 US Open men’s champion.
