Taylor Fritz

Early life and background

Fritz was born to Guy Fritz and former world top-10 tennis player Kathy May. He is the great-great-grandson of David May, founder of The May Department Stores Company (now Macy's), and the great-grandson of Morton D. May.

Junior career

In 2015, Fritz reached at least the quarterfinal of all four junior grand slam tournaments, including the final at the French Open where he lost to Tommy Paul, and the final at the U.S. Open where he defeated Paul. This grand slam success helped him finish the year as the number one ranked boy's junior tennis player, for which he was named the 2015 ITF Junior World Champion. He was the first American to hold this title since Donald Young in 2005 and Andy Roddick in 2000.

2015: Challenger Tour success

Fritz played his first ATP Tour tournament at Nottingham, where he received a wild card and won his first ATP match. In September 2015, Fritz turned pro after winning the Junior U.S. Open. He quickly rose from the 600s into the Top 250 of the ATP Rankings by becoming the 9th player at age 17 to win multiple Challenger Tour titles – doing so in back-to-back weeks. The others to accomplish that feat include Top 20 players Bernard Tomic, Tomas Berdych, Richard Gasquet, and Juan Martín del Potro as well as Number 1 overall players Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.

2016: Surge into Top 100

After losing in the final of his last tournament of 2015, Fritz reached a final again in his first tournament of 2016, this time winning against Top 100 player Dudi Sela at Happy Valley to catapult to a ranking in the 150s. In the following week, he made it through Australian Open Qualifying to reach his first main draw of a Grand Slam tournament at the Australian Open, where he would lose in the 1st round to fellow American Jack Sock in five sets.

Fritz was awarded a wild card into his first ATP 250 tournament of 2016 at Memphis and knocked off the 2nd-seeded Steve Johnson, who at No. 29 is the highest ranked player Fritz had ever defeated. With his victory over Ricardas Berankis in the semi-final, he became the youngest American to reach an ATP final since Michael Chang in 1988, and also the 2nd-fastest American ever to reach an ATP final, doing so in just his 3rd career ATP tournament. John Isner is the only American that was able to reach an ATP final faster. Fritz would lose in the final to three-time defending champion and Top 10 player Kei Nishikori. In February, Fritz cracked the Top 100 for the first time by reaching the quarter-finals in Acapulco at his first career ATP 500 event.

Fritz's grass court season was highlighted by a close three set loss to Roger Federer at Stuttgart. He would end up peaking in the rankings at No. 53 towards the end of the summer. At the US Open, Fritz drew Jack Sock in the first round of a grand slam for the second time this year, again losing in five sets.

To cap off the year, Fritz won the ATP Star of Tomorrow for being the youngest player in the Top 100, having just turned 19 years old.

2017: First Grand Slam match win

Fritz struggled through the first half of the year with injury problems, and ended up skipping the clay court season to focus on recovering. He returned to form in the summer with quarterfinals at Los Cabos and Winston-Salem. He finally won his first match at a grand slam by knocking out Marcos Baghdatis at the US Open.

Playing style

Fritz possesses a dominant serve that can reach 130 mph, and solid groundstrokes off both wings.

Personal life

When Fritz played his first match against Roger Federer, he recalled when in computer class in the 5th grade, he live streamed the 2009 US Open final between Federer and Juan Martín del Potro.

He married tennis player Raquel Pedraza in California in July 2016, after dating for over two years. Raquel gave birth to the couple's child, a boy named Jordan, in January 2017.

Singles performance timeline

Current through the 2017 US Open.