It took just a nightmarish hour for Taylor Fritz to go from breakthrough to breakdown, to go from one of his best shots at winning a major to one of the worst collapses of his career.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz \u2014 a prime candidate to snap American men\u2019s 23-year Grand Slam drought \u2014 had been up two sets and a break in the third round of a U.S. Open where the draw had opened up perfectly. Instead, he\u2019s on the wrong side of an implosion, upset 3-6, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 by Francisco Cerundolo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I don\u2019t even know what to say,\u201d said a despondent Fritz. \u201cI don\u2019t really want to talk to anybody, see anybody. I just need to get out for a couple days and then just get back to work. I don\u2019t know how I let that happen.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor Fritz of the USA reacts as he plays against Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina in the third round of the US Open Tennis Championship in Arthur Ashe Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Saturday. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a question sure to haunt Fritz for a while.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the latest on the 2026 US Open:<\/p>\n
Fritz had made the 2024 final in Flushing and was seeded ninth this year. And with Jannik Sinner, Novak Djokovic and Felix Auger-Aliassime all gone, the Californian was not only the best hard-court player left in his quarter of the draw but well positioned to be the first American man to win a major since 2003.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That positioning got stronger when he raced out to a two-set lead.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor Fritz of the USA reacts during a break in his match against Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina in the third round. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Fritz had been 44-1 in Majors with that kind of cushion, including 12-0 here in the U.S. Open. But that perfection ended Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After breezing through his 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 second-round demolition of Mattia Bellucci in just 1:37, Cerundolo proved a far tougher challenge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even when Fritz took the opening two sets, he wasn\u2019t quite as sharp as the scorelines implied. He had to save 11 of the 13 break points he faced in those first two sets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But after both players swapped breaks early in the third set, Cerundolo started to find his footing. And Fritz started to lose his, showing the first signs of cracking on break point in the sixth game when he mishit a shot past the baseline.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Taylor Fritz of the USA reacts as he plays against Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nothing that wasn\u2019t already happening. I was lucky to get through the first and second sets, just because he wasn\u2019t serving great,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cHe was making some mistakes, so I was able to get breaks and then just fight through service games. He had so many opportunities to break me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI just needed to serve better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fritz dropped that third set, then on another break point in the fourth set, he sprayed another shot long. He hit his thigh with the racket and started to show visible signs of frustration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His afternoon wouldn\u2019t get any better.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After having saved so many break points to take the first two sets, Fritz managed just two of six in dropping the final three sets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Francisco Cerundolo of Argentina reacts as he plays against Taylor Fritz. Corey Sipkin for the NY POST<\/p>\n
Up 4-3 in the final set, Fritz earned a triple break point. But he missed on a sloppy return, then faced two huge Cerundolo serves before a huge forehand from the Argentine on game point made him spray a backhand long.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was a huge missed opportunity to break, and Fritz got broken himself. Down 15-40, he hit a forehand into the net and slammed his racket.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was playing way better than me the first two sets,\u201d said Cerundolo, who will face Alexander Blockx. \u201cI started getting into it step by step.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And kept Fritz from giving the Americans five men in the round of 16 for the first time since 1994.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe definitely got more confident in his shots. He played a lot better,\u201d Fritz said. \u201cWhat won me the first two sets was that from the baseline I was playing really well, and he started playing more aggressive and making less mistakes. It just makes it tougher.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fourth and fifth he served incredible. \u2026 He served himself out of trouble in the fifth. My level from the baseline just declined; I wasn\u2019t hitting the ball as good as I was earlier. When that happens, it gets tougher to play those pressure moments, because I\u2019m a bit more unsure about my ball striking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It took just a nightmarish hour for Taylor Fritz to go from breakthrough to breakdown, to go from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[50,221,28,463,616],"class_list":["post-66599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-sports","tag-taylor-fritz","tag-tennis","tag-us-open","tag-us-open-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}