Of Fritz’s eight tour championships—which include a victory over Rafael Nadal in the finals of the prestigious Indian Wells tournament in 2022—two have come in 2024: Delray Beach and Eastbourne, UK. Notably, he retains the tour’s fourth-highest serve rating, and he averages 11 aces per match. He’s had strong results in 2024’s Slams, too, reaching the quarterfinals at both the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Tall, lithe, good-looking, and with a matter-of-fact playing style, Fritz is the Southern Californian-born star figure in the American mens’ game, attracting sponsors as wide-ranging as Boss, Tiffany & Co., and Chipotle. (Fritz’s go-to order, he tells me: “I’m not going to lie—it’s pretty mild: bowl, white rice, no beans, then chicken, a little bit of sour cream, cheese, and guac. I get the salad vinaigrette on the side.”)

Fritz picked up another major accolade in 2024: a bronze medal in doubles (playing with Paul) at the Paris Games. “We really wanted to get a medal—obviously we really wanted gold, but it meant a lot to be able to get the bronze with one of my closest friends and to bring one home for the States.” Laughing, he adds of the atmosphere on Roland Garros’s Court Philippe Chatrier: “I definitely didn’t feel like I was getting that kind of love during the actual French Open.” (Fritz is not afraid to make his opinions known, and got into some hot water online when he “shushed” the crowd during the French earlier this year.) Fritz says that clay—the surface on which the Olympics was played—is “definitely not my favorite,” and that the third-place finish there was a bit of redemption for the nickname “Claylor,” which sprung up and took hold on tennis Twitter earlier this year. “I don’t love it, but we embrace it,” he says.