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I have some thoughts regarding that comments delivered by ESPN commentator a well-known announcer after Novak Djokovic's victory over Taylor Fritz in the US Open quarter-finals. Consider – Fritz is American, Fowler is from the US – and sports often encourage nationalism. Some letdown would have been appropriate. Instead, he invoked the ongoing absence of US male players at grand slam tournaments: none of them has won a trophy since Andy Roddick in 2003, and he had been the final representative in the tournament.

Everyone love a storyline, me too. But really. Even if Fritz defeated Djokovic for the initial occasion, phenomenal talent Carlos Alcaraz was looming in the next round, who Fritz has never defeated in an competitive encounter. And if he’d somehow gotten past that, it would have been title holder Jannik Sinner, versus him the American had dropped 10 of the previous eleven sets. Alcaraz and Sinner had also divided the previous seven major titles (and Alcaraz went on to defeat a fatigued Serbian in the subsequent match). He said in post-match interviews after the loss that he actually preferred his draw, because it offered the opportunity to defeat the top three competitors in the sport in succession. Fritz is more than within his right to aspire to the accomplishment; an athlete is meant to have faith in themselves. But going into that Serbian last eight match who else in their right mind had the lack of US winners in mind?

Coco Gauff’s weaker delivery the only thing standing in her way and consistent victories

The American, 28, is placed fourth in the world starting this week’s year-end championships and has secured his previous six encounters over third-ranked Alexander Zverev with increasing ease. It's likely he could claim that position for himself in the coming years. But evidently that at present, that’s as far as he can climb: The Italian and Spaniard lie a chasm of performance metrics away. Fritz’s elite delivery and powerful power on each front side and backhand are sufficiently adequate to dispose of the majority of rivals on the ATP tour. Against the handful of once-in-a-lifetime players, though, he is frequently helpless. The last several seasons has witnessed the curious emergence of tall, gangly players who can nevertheless move around with the surprising speed and grace of much shorter players. Fritz is six-foot-five and appears that way. His footwork is stiff, as if he hasn't fully adapted to his limbs. So he’ll rarely win a rally that the other player was controlling, and playing a soft shot against him is typically a safe bet. That serves as a pretty harsh restriction on his potential.

Fritz has achieved a several dramatic, improbable advancements over the years. Early on of the decade, he was hovering around the bottom of the top 30. Two years after, he was sniffing the elite ten. Last year, he unexpectedly surged up to fourth place – and held the position. But the subsequent step, competing against and defeating all-time-greats like the young Spaniard, the Italian, and even a declining Djokovic, is the toughest of all. What was the commentator have been thinking? That Fritz, in 2025, was a serious threat to defeat them all back-to-back? That it was worth commenting on the ongoing drought of American men lifting major titles when Fritz had departed the US Open in the quarter-finals? The desperation is simply excessive and the appreciation for the difficulty of the task too little.

The American star achieved a career-best run to the All England Club last four in the summer.

Fritz’s play in that exact quarter-final should have been sufficient of an sign. Djokovic triumphed in four sets, a win that only seemed tenuous for moments towards the very end, when the American had saved a few match points and had a chance to maintain serve for 5-5. The duo looked evenly matched during the exchanges, with the American earning plenty of chances to break. But Djokovic saved service break opportunity after service break opportunity, extending the streak to the brink of agony. When Fritz finally did convert a single of the chances at 5-5 in the middle stanza, he promptly produced a terrible service game to drop serve once more; Djokovic had drawn him into a battle peripheral to the real battle and forced him to expend excessive energy to win it. Down match points in the final game, Fritz’s first serve sailed to the sky. He extended the contest twice on his backup delivery, but ultimately double-faulted. It was not a collapse, in my opinion, just a consequence of needing to hit too many second serves.

The contest was fairly ironclad evidence that the American is not good enough to defeat any version of Djokovic, that was defeated by Alcaraz in the next round and did not especially seem like he believed he could triumph. This is perfectly acceptable – Djokovic is the greatest of all time, and might not be at the peak of his physical powers anymore, but has acquired sufficient experience and strategic intelligence to compensate for a significant portion of the decline. The problem is those who were anticipating the American to win, and putting pressure on him to achieve that, when he was had not done anything that indicated he would.

The American is an asset to the circuit nonetheless. He’s a calm, thoughtful voice in media sessions, more so than almost anyone on the men's tour aside from the Russian star, prepared to not just say how he feels or the strategy he believed determined a match, but explain it. That he ought to bear the brunt of the responsibility for the United States not produce a men's grand slam winner since the last American titlist seems unjust. (Now that the fellow American is competing alongside him in the standings, perhaps they can divide that load.)

ATP Finals: Singles Groups

Jimmy Connors Division

• The Spanish phenom
• The American contender
• Alex de Minaur (Aus)
• The Italian stylist

Swedish icon Division

• Jannik Sinner (It)
• Alexander Zverev (Ger)
• Ben Shelton (US)
• Félix Auger-Aliassime (Can)

“I’d probably think about it indefinitely if I fail to do it,” Fritz told a journalist in June of claiming a major. It is hoped he understands that he’s not a failure if he doesn’t achieve that goal, that breaking through Alcaraz and Sinner’s young, terrifying reign is in fact highly improbable for all other players. {