Taylor Fritz: ‘The stuff Kyrgios does, it turns on people who aren’t fans’

After breaking into the top 15 of the ATP rankings, Taylor Fritz is looking for more success at this month’s US Open. After a gut-wrenching five-set loss to Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals at this year’s Wimbledon, the 24-year-old is hoping to become the first American man to win a grand slam singles title since Andy Roddick in 2003.

You played an epic against Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon. How does a tough loss like that change your mindset? I’m motivated to keep having results and keep putting myself in those types of situations where I can play those matches. That one hurt because I wanted it so bad. I felt like I put in all the work, I felt like I deserved it. I really felt like I was going to win the match the entire time until the very end.

Because of the ban on Russian and Belarusian players, no rankings points were given out at this year’s Wimbledon. How do you feel about that? I think it was fair that we took points away. I think it was unfair that those players weren’t able to just play representing no flag. [Russia’s invasion of Ukraine] has nothing to do with them. They shouldn’t have been banned from the tournament, but after that happens and you have all these players that don’t get the chance like everybody else does to compete for points, it wouldn’t be fair to collect points, which obviously is tough because if I had gotten the points from Wimbledon, I’d be top 10 right now. It’d be huge for me but, bias aside, I have to say it sucks. I wish we all could have played. I wish there could’ve been points, but if certain players aren’t going to be allowed to play, then I don’t think it’s fair that there’s points.

You have mentioned in the past that you wanted the ATP to be more accepting of players showing