Taylor Fritz’s run to the US Open final was the stuff of fairytales, but even the unrelenting support of his home country was not enough to topple Jannik Sinner in the championship match.
Broken instantly in the first set, a marker had been laid down, and from then onwards it was always bound to be an uphill battle.
At times he threatened to gain a foothold, but his 23-year-old opponent was just too good.
In fact, Taylor Fritz even admitted that, at times, his play style almost allowed Jannik Sinner to walk all over him…
Taylor Fritz makes disappointing US Open final admission
Speaking at his post-match press conference, the American was in surprisingly good spirits despite the crushing nature of his loss.
He fought well but never really looked like troubling the top seed, even though he had a chance to serve out for the third set.
Unfortunately crumbling at the crucial moment, he also told reporters about the big error he made that allowed Sinner to ‘bully’ him at times on the court.
Fritz revealed: ‘When my plan A isn’t working, the plan B that I fall back on would normally be just like bring everything in, being a little bit safer, grinding it out, and that works along with my serve against a lot of other players.
‘I guess against him [Sinner] when I tried to bring it down and not be as aggressive then he’s just going to bully me a little bit too much so it was tough that my plan A wasn’t really working for me until the third set.’
Taylor Fritz endured a nightmare run at the 2024 US Open
Now that it’s all over, we can comb back through the entire tournament with context perfectly in place.
That therefore makes it a lot easier to say how desperately unlucky Fritz was to get such an unbelievably tough draw, and one that could have been even more difficult had Carlos Alcaraz not been knocked out earlier too.
Kickstarting his campaign in New York with a match against Matteo Berrettini, the returning Italian has caused problems for everyone he has faced, and remains the one unseeded player that nobody wants to face in Grand Slams.
A straight-sets victory laid down a marker, backed up by a commanding win over Argentine Francisco Comesana before facing Casper Ruud.
The first of three top-ten seeds he would face in the US Open, he came from one set down to win in four before then claiming his biggest win of the tournament to overcome Alexander Zverev.
In turn, he made history, finally surpassing that quarter-final stage and setting up a showdown with fellow American Frances Tiafoe for a spot in the final.
However, that could so easily have been Alcaraz on another day.
Beating him in five sets, the small task of toppling the world number one awaited, and it just proved too much on the day.
Fritz can still feel immensely proud of the almighty shift he put in throughout these glorious two weeks though.
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