Every year at the US Open, the top American men are asked some version of the same question: Is this finally the year?
It has now been 23 years since Andy Roddick won the 2003 US Open, the last time an American man won a Grand Slam singles title. In the years since, the drought has become its own storyline, one that gets dusted off every August and handed to whichever group of American men happens to arrive in New York with the best chance of ending it.
This year, there are plenty of reasons to ask the question again. Taylor Fritz made the final here two years ago and believes he is as good, if not better, than he was then. Ben Shelton has spent the summer playing some of his best tennis on his favorite surface. Frances Tiafoe says he barely recognizes the person who arrived—sullen and out of form—in New York a year ago. Tommy Paul, meanwhile, points to the number of Americans who went deep in Montreal and Cincinnati as evidence that the group is arriving at the US Open in particularly good form.
Jannik Sinner’s absence from the tournament has only made the temptation to look ahead stronger. What was already an intriguing opportunity suddenly appears a little more open, and after more than two decades of waiting for another American man to win a major, it is very easy to start dreaming.
However, the Americans themselves would prefer not to.
“I’m focused on my first round, my first match,” Shelton said when asked before the tournament whether Sinner’s absence made him think differently about his own chances, or those of the American men more broadly. “I don’t think too far beyond that.”
Tiafoe was even more succinct when the drought inevitably came up in his pre-tournament press conference. “Still gotta beat seven guys however way you slice it,” he said. “Just trying to beat the guy in front of me.”
And when Fritz was asked after his first-round win whether injuries and early upsets had made this year’s field feel particularly open, he barely entertained the premise.
“None of that matters until I’m in the semis or the finals, honestly,” he said. “So I don’t even worry about it until then.”
Keep reading for how Fritz, Shelton, Tiafoe and Paul are approaching the pressure and possibility of this US Open.
