Taylor Fritz is an unusual tennis player that has the good fortune of being a good pedigree and also having the family resources to pursue tennis at a young age. Some might argue that almost all tennis players are in this same situation.
But Taylor Fritz also has one unfortunate aspect to his life and this is one that has nothing to do with fortune or dedication, is has everything to do with timing.
You see, Taylor Fritz has the misfortune of being alive and active during a time when two sets of legendary players were overlapping and he is a bit of an in-betweener. When at a Grand Slam, it seems as though we are excited to see that Fritz is there, but he is never going to win these things.
Prior to now it was Nadal, Djokovic, Roger Federer, with a sprinkling of visits from people like Medvedev and Andy Murray but then we start to see a passing of the torch to younger talent such as Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner with of course Djokovic being the one to make the crossover between both.
Taylor still makes a ton of money and wins minor tournaments and even some of the bigger ones that have less fame associated with them, but he hasn't ever been a serious threat to emerge victorious at the US Open, The French Open, Wimbledon, or the Australian Open because there has always been one of the aforementioned names that were standing in the way, and it seems just destined to beat Fritz.
Fritz has a game on Tuesday that has been a thorn in his side since he started entering professional tournaments on an elite level.
Some would argue that Novak Djokovich has been a thorn in everyone's side as he is one of the only players in history to be able to claim victory across two different "eras" of players. Now at nearly 40 years of age, Djokovich is doing things that most people consider impossible and he goes through a lot of physical therapy to accomplish that.
He and Nole have come up facing one another 10 times in past tournaments and Taylor Fritz has lost all of them. 0-10 is a tough record to look at and have any sort of confidence of victory and that must weigh heavy on his mind. In fact, Taylor rarely wins a single set against Djokovich although he has taken him to tiebreakers on a number of occasions. The closest he ever came to victory was during the Australian Open in 2021.
Fritz has remained positive stating things like he has improved in the past 5 years, which is most likely true and his number 4 global ATP ranking would indicate that he will soon be a Grand Slam winner. Djokovic is ranked 7th, but much of this has to do with some politics of the ATP and the fact that he only participates in a few tournaments per year.
It would be a huge milestone of Taylor were to emerge victorious but can he really pull it off? I'll be watching because we could see history being made on Tuesday. The best thing about it is that since I like both of these guys and there isn't really a rivalry there, that I will be happy with either winning.
The bad news for whoever does end up winning though is that they will face world number 2 Carlos Alcaraz in the following round.