Fritz's Golden Opportunity Slips Away at US Open

Taylor Fritz walked off Ashe looking like a man who had just seen his best chance vanish into the New York night.

Two sets up, a break ahead in the third, the ninth seed in full command of his home Slam. Then it all fell apart. Francisco Cerundolo, scrapping, swinging, refusing to fold, turned a lost cause into a five-set ambush: 3-6 4-6 6-3 6-4 6-4, and a place in the US Open fourth round.

Fritz had no answers, on court or off it.

“I don’t even know what to say,” he admitted afterwards. “I don’t really want to talk to anybody, see anybody. I need to get out for a couple days and then get back to work. I don’t know how I let that happen today.”

On a draw sheet already shredded by upsets, this was another tear right through the middle.

Fritz’s golden window slams shut

This was supposed to be the runway. No Jannik Sinner. Carlos Alcaraz still feeling his way back from a wrist injury. Novak Djokovic already gone in the shock of day one. The path for an American surge at Flushing Meadows had rarely looked clearer.

Fritz, a finalist here in 2024, carried the weight of that expectation. He was chasing a place in the last 16 that would have made him the fifth American man into the fourth round, feeding a growing belief that, 23 years after Andy Roddick lifted the trophy, the drought might finally end.

For two sets, he played like a man ready to seize the moment. The serve was biting, the forehand heavy, the crowd leaning into every point. An early break in the third set looked like the final shove Cerundolo could not withstand.

Then the match turned.

The Argentine, ranked outside the elite but brimming with fight, began to stretch rallies, to drag Fritz into longer exchanges. The American’s first-serve percentage dipped, his footwork dulled, and suddenly the initiative switched ends. Cerundolo snatched the third set, then the fourth, and by the decider he was dictating, not surviving.

Each Fritz error drew a groan. Each Cerundolo winner landed like a body blow. The pressure that had seemed to suffocate the Argentine in the opening two sets now wrapped itself around the favourite. When the final ball sailed out, Fritz could only stare, stunned, at a scoreboard that read like a missed era, not just a missed match.

He will know it was a golden opportunity, perhaps the best of his career so far, and it slipped through his fingers on his own turf.

Cerundolo, meanwhile, marches on to a fourth-round meeting that few predicted, but now feels entirely earned.

Cobolli collapses as Blockx rips up the script

Barely an hour after Fritz’s exit, another seed crumbled.

Flavio Cobolli, the fifth seed, had edged a tight opening set against Alexander Blockx, taking it on a tie-break and appearing to settle into the match. Then his game disintegrated. The Belgian, seeded 28th, reeled off a 7-6 (7-4) 3-6 0-6 3-6 win that grew more brutal with every passing game.

The third set told the story. Cobolli lost it to love in just 20 minutes, his energy drained, his timing gone. He never truly recovered.

“I think my energy was a little bit lower than the other days,” he said. “I feel a little bit more tight and maybe more tired.”

He did not hide from the result.

“Alex is very good guy outside the court. He deserved to win, and he won,” Cobolli added, even promising to support Blockx in the next round.

The defeat ends Cobolli’s hopes of a maiden Grand Slam title for at least another few months. On this evidence, it ends them with a sting.

Blockx now meets Cerundolo in a fourth-round clash that no one had circled when the draw came out, yet now carries a place in the quarter-finals as its prize.

Djokovic’s tears set the tone

The chaos at the top of the men’s draw did not begin with Fritz and Cobolli. It started with a thunderclap.

On the opening day, Novak Djokovic – chasing a record 25th Grand Slam title – was sent out of the tournament by Mariano Navone. The world number 49 from Argentina dragged the fourth seed into a five-set fight and left him in tears at the end of it, a seismic result that shook Flushing Meadows before the first week had truly begun.

The dominoes kept falling.

Tenth seed Arthur Fils departed in round one as well, beaten in four sets by former world number three Stefanos Tsitsipas. Felix Auger-Aliassime, the third seed and the highest-ranked casualty so far, followed in round two against Karen Khachanov. Sixth seed Alex de Minaur went out at the same stage.

Each exit widened the gap. Each one made the top half feel less like a ladder and more like a minefield.

Those collapses seemed to clear a path for Fritz and Cobolli to charge deep into the second week. Instead, both stumbled at the very moment the door swung open.

Zverev’s open road

Strip away the names already gone and the picture at the top of the draw looks startling.

Apart from top seed Alexander Zverev, only two top-20 players remain in that half: 14th seed Learner Tien and 17th seed Jakub Mensik. They face each other on Friday, which guarantees that one of them will fall before the weekend is out.

That leaves Zverev staring at a route to the final that, on paper, could unfold without a single top-10 opponent. He is not scheduled to face anyone inside the top 20 before the semi-finals.

Grand Slams rarely obey the script, but the opportunity in front of the German is glaring. The question is whether he can handle the expectation that now comes with it.

British doubles mixed fortunes

Away from the singles carnage, British interest in the men’s doubles found some traction.

Arthur Fery and Joshua Paris ground out a hard-fought 6-4 5-7 6-4 win over Anirudh Chandrasekar and Ivan Liutarevich, edging a tight deciding set to move into the next round.

Neal Skupski, alongside American partner Christian Harrison, delivered a more straightforward progression. The fifth seeds blitzed Arthur Reymond and Luca Sanchez 6-0 7-6 (7-3), combining ruthless efficiency with just enough composure in the tie-break to avoid any late drama.

For David Stevenson and Marcus Willis, the margins went the other way. They fell 5-7 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 to 11th seeds Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul, a match that swung on the second-set tie-break and never swung back.

In a first week defined by collapses, comebacks and raw emotion, one truth hangs over Flushing Meadows: the men’s draw has cracked wide open. Someone is about to step through it. Who has the nerve to make this chaos their moment?