Taylor Fritz saw his US Open dreams come crashing down at the hands of world number one Jannik Sinner.
Sinner overcame Fritz in the 2024 US Open final in straight sets, with the former beating the latter 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Nick Kyrgios says Fritz should be proud of his efforts, with the American having reached his first-ever Grand Slam final.
Fritz had only ever made it to a major quarter-final throughout his career, but that all changed with his victory over Alexander Zverev in Queens.
Hugely impressive wins over Casper Ruud and Frances Tiafoe were also achieved by the 12th seed, who simply didn’t have enough left to produce a final upset.
Taylor Fritz says how Jannik Sinner has improved after their US Open final
Boris Becker has messaged Sinner after the victory, which represents the Italian’s second Grand Slam title of 2024, having also won the Australian Open.
Fritz has certainly noticed Sinner’s rise to the top, with the American saying in his final US Open press conference: “Yeah I’d say he’s definitely improved a little bit since I beat him in straight sets at Indian Wells in 2021 [laughs].
“The biggest improvements by far is his serve. If I’m going to go back, because I played him last year at Indian Wells and he had already improved his serve, I think from then I don’t think the improvement is like a tonne.
“He was very very good at that point, pulled out of a lot of tournaments when he was already deep into it. At that time he was ranked outside the top ten. I think at that point he was very close to the level, he had just yet to show all of the results.”
Jannik Sinner wins six title of the year at the US Open
Sinner sits at the very top of the ATP Tour world rankings, with that position not likely to change anytime soon.
His serving was certainly important to his US Open final win over Fritz, who simply never got going at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
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John McEnroe says Fritz has improved defensively, but there was often little he could do against the power and precision of Sinner.
The Italian has often blown away the competition this season, with the world number one having just secured his sixth title of 2024.
And he has now taken his head-to-head record with Fritz to 2-1, having each beaten the other at the ATP Masters 1000 Indian Wells in 2021 and 2023.
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