Taylor Fritz can empathize with school kids across America.
And they can certainly understand where he’s coming from when he thought back to being a kid and the time of year when he had to go back to school.
The U.S. Open is synonymous with plenty of things, but one that sticks out at this time of the year is the return to school. While Fritz has long since moved past that time in his life, thinking back to it following his first-round win over fellow American Darwin Blanch, he had one overarching thought.
“I was always pretty excited to go back to school after the summer, excited for the first week or two, and then, Oh, it sucks now, I don’t really want to do this,” Fritz said.
The U.S. Open and returning to school took on a new feel for Fritz when he began taking part in the juniors tournament, which he competed in from 2013 through 2015.
“I do remember when I first started playing juniors here, I would just straight up miss like the first two weeks of high school my freshman year, and I had so much catch-up work to do,” he said.
New York City Schools won’t begin until next week, and Long Island and New Jersey districts usually return to classes in early September.
American women’s tennis star Coco Gauff had a slightly different memory of returning to school at this time of year, having been homeschooled since she was in the third grade.
“I went to the Open almost every year. I don’t ever recall doing schoolwork while I was here, so I think it was still, like, break for me. But yeah, unfortunately, I didn’t have a normal childhood, so yeah,” she said with a chuckle after she defeated Zeynep Sonmez in straight sets.
Whenever Fritz’s U.S. Open run ends, he won’t have to deal with any schoolwork or classes, but he is hoping that the run goes deep into the tournament.
Fritz is among the several big-name American men in this year’s U.S. Open hoping to end the Grand Slam drought, which has not seen an American man win in Flushing since Andy Roddick in 2003.
Fritz said after his match that it was “super important” to win a slam during the course of his career and that he’d be “pretty disappointed in the end of it if I wasn’t able to achieve that.”
Fritz will face Mattia Bellucci of Italy in the second round of the U.S. Open.
