It was a picture perfect day for Taylor Fritz to win the US Open men’s final. The weather was cool and still. The sunshine that streamed into Arthur Ashe Stadium stayed off the court, out of his face. But most significantly, an all-American crowd – which included pop singer namesake Taylor Swift, among other glitterati from sports and screen – was firmly at Fritz’s back. It was shaping up to be an exquisite afternoon, the sort that can define a summer – or a life in Fritz’s case. But then Jannik Sinner had to go ahead and spoil it.

On Sunday the world No 1 made quick work of Fritz, dispatching the American in a clinical straight sets victory that lasted a little more than two hours on the way to claiming the US Open – the second grand slam title of his burgeoning career. While the Italian clambered into the stands to celebrate with his support team (“Bravo, Jannik,” the singer Seal cooed to him mid-hug. “Forza”), Fritz sat slumped in his chair, hands on his head and ruminated about what could have been.

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“I’m sorry I didn’t get it done this time,” Fritz said after faltering in his bid to become the first American man in 21 years to win his home slam. “But I’m gonna keep working, and I’ll get it the next time.” The urge to sympathize with him was almost too great. “You’ll get it,” ESPN presenter Chris McKendry said by way of consolation – only to be outdone by the USTA’s Brian Hainline. “We know there’s a grand slam champion in you,” the federation’s chairman said.

Fritz still had the hangdog look on for his post-match news conference, but he was careful not to let the outpouring of compassion mutate into pity. Mostly, he rejected the idea that his five-set semi-final with compatriot Frances Tiafoe had cost him physically or psychically, and gave Sinner credit for the improvements he made to his game – especially on serve – since they met in the 2023 Indian Wells quarter-finals. What’s more, Fritz could take a measure of satisfaction in having made his deepest advance in a slam. “There’s obviously a lot of positives, and when I get some time to, like, cool down you know then I’ll be happy about the fact that I made it to the finals,” he said. “But right now I’m pretty disappointed in how, like, just a lot of things on court – how I played, how I hit certain shots. It sucks.”

If any American man was going to make it to this stage it was Fritz, tennis’s Todd Marinovich. Like the fabled golden boy quarterback, engineered from inception for NFL stardom, Fritz was preordained for sporting success. His mom, Kathy, was a Top 10 player on the women’s tour. His dad, Guy, also a former pro, is a celebrated youth coach. What’s more, Fritz comes from money, something that helps in a sport that can be very expensive; his great-great-grandfather founded a department store chain that was eventually absorbed by Macy’s.

Not unlike Mike Agassi, a notoriously heavy-handed tennis dad, Guy began working with his son as a toddler, drilling him until he could walk down a balance beam unaided. At their 7,000-sq ft hacienda in Rancho Santa Fe, a well-heeled enclave just north of San Diego where Bing Crosby once hosted golf tournaments, Guy trained his son at a bespoke home gym and restricted him to a diet that was high on vegetables but low on sugar. So it should come as no surprise that Fritz cut ties with his dad shortly before turning pro – after becoming the first American since Andy Roddick and Donald Young to emerge as the world’s top junior male player in 2015.

A year later Fritz, still a teenager, married his childhood sweetheart, another junior player named Raquel Pedraza. A year after that they welcomed a son, Jordan. By 2019, barely into his 20s, he was divorced – and after cracking the top 30 in the world rankings in his fourth year on tour. The following year Covid came along and halted everything.

Any one of these life events should have been enough to stop a rising tennis career dead in its tracks – especially if that career belonged to a young woman. Which is to say: it’s highly likely that a young woman would not have the luxury of this distinctly male entitlement. Strip away the money and the privilege, and Fritz could easily have become the kind of player that Tiafoe, Tommy Paul and other peers reflect on wistfully in their success, as the talented guy they played alongside in the juniors but didn’t make it because of a few unlucky breaks. But those early challenges stalled rather than stopped Fritz, who has since moved on to relationship with the social media influencer Morgan Riddle while co-parenting as best he can as he travels to tournaments around the globe. And in short order, he’s gone from overshadowed to the clear standard bearer of American men’s tennis.

He had been on form all this year, winning tournaments in Delray Beach and Eastbourne while making his first appearances in the quarter-finals of the Australian Open and Wimbledon. At the Paris Olympics, he teamed with Paul to take bronze in doubles. “To bring something back to the States means everything,” he said after the win. At the US Open, Fritz made the most of Novak Djokovic crashing out of his draw, notching quality wins against fourth-seeded Casper Ruud, 2020 US Open finalist Alexander Zverev and Tiafoe – only to wind up losing to Sinner, the junior tennis prodigy who famously abandoned tennis for a long stretch to try soccer and skiing and proved pretty good at those, too.

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There was enough interest in a potential American coronation for the tournament to set up beach chairs outside Arthur Ashe stadium, in front of the bank of jumbo screens at the south entrance, to accommodate those who could not make it into the arena. But inside it was Sinner who looked more like the purpose-built tennis machine while blunting Fritz’s brawny groundstrokes and redirecting them with greater force. At times Sinner presented some cracks of his own in the form of seven break points, not least one a slam-dunk swinging volley that he missed by a country mile. But Fritz only managed to capitalize twice – and the Italian was especially quick about getting those breaks back.

In his on-court interview after his victory, Sinner stressed a desire to “finish my career with no regrets.” With the four majors this year split between him and Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz, both of whom are in their early 20s, it appears as if tennis’s Big Three has given way to these Brash Two.

Where that leaves the 26-year-old Fritz is harder to say. Besides his own peers to contend with in Tiafoe, Paul and 2023 Australian Open quarter-finalist Sebastian Korda, Fritz could well find himself getting leapfrogged by 21-year-old Ben Shelton – a reluctant American prodigy who has quickly established himself as a force to be reckoned with. This may well have been Fritz’s best shot to break through, on a perfect day while he can still touch Sinner’s level.

The idea that Fritz may never live down this defeat, that he didn’t complete the perfect picture, plainly devastated him to his absolute core. “I just would have liked to have played better and given myself a better chance,” he said, choking back the emotion. “It’s really disappointing right now. I feel like, I don’t know, I feel like the fans obviously, American fans, [have] been wanting a men’s champion for a long time, and I just, I don’t know, I’m pretty upset with how I played. I feel like, I don’t know, I feel like I almost let a lot of people down.”

But the fact that he even made this far, a staggering achievement, shouldn’t be lost, too.