Taylor Fritz is under no illusion. After beating his American compatriot Frances Tiafoe in five sets on Friday night at the U.S. Open semifinals, Fritz became the first U.S. men’s player to reach the final of his country’s crown-jewel tennis event in 18 years—a bit of a mind-boggling drought. Fritz knows his next test, the championship match on Sunday against the top-ranked player in the world, Jannik Sinner of Italy, will be incredibly difficult.

But Fritz, who’s also the first American man to reach the final of any major tournament in 15 years, is drawing confidence from two factors. For one, the hardest part is over. “I think today was much more stressful than me playing the final,” Fritz said after this 4-6, 7-5, 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 triumph over Tiafoe. Fritz owned a 6-to-1 head-to-head advantage over Tiafoe, a close friend, going into the semi. So he felt pressure to win the match, and his desire to be the American men’s player to make a bit of history threatened to overwhelm him, especially after dropping a first set he led 3-0.

“That was really tough, I guess, mentally for me, to kind of swallow,” said Fritz. “I kind of just gave the set away off of my mistakes and, like, me being nervous.”

Fritz rebounded, however, to win the second set, and with the fourth set tied 3-3, he won a 31-shot rally that gave him some momentum. After the match, a devastated Tiafoe said that not long after that marathon point, his body cramped up—due to nerves, he believes. Fritz cruised the rest of the way.

Secondly, Fritz believes he matches up well with Sinner. They’ve faced each other twice before, at the hard courts of Indian Wells: Sinner won the last meeting, in 2023, while Fritz beat Sinner in straight sets back in 2021. “I've always played well against Jannik,” said Fritz. “He's like a very strong ball striker, but I feel like I always hit the ball really nice off of his ball.”

“I have a feeling,” said Fritz, “I'm going to come out and play really well and win.”

It’s only fitting that Fritz has earned the opportunity to be the first American man to actually win a U.S. Open since Andy Roddick did so 21 years ago, in 2003. While Tiafoe was the crowd favorite at a packed Arthur Ashe Stadium Friday night—Tiafoe had been on that semifinal stage two years ago, when he lost to Carlos Alcaraz in a thrilling match, and plays to the fans more than his lower-key opponent—Fritz entered the tournament as the highest-ranked American. He broke through two years ago to win Indian Wells, perhaps the most prestigious global tournament outside the majors on tour, and this season became the first U.S. player since Andre Agassi in 2003 to reach the second week of all four majors. When ESPN cited this stat, Fritz, a rangy 6’5” southern Californian who's the son of former top-10 pro player Kathy May Fritz and Guy Frtiz, a respected coach, playfully dinged the network on X (formerly Twitter). “Love the shoutout from but you follow my gf and not me on insta so we have beef,” Fritz wrote. His girlfriend, influencer Morgan Riddle, has 372,000 followers on Instagram, and over 542,000 on TikTok.

“Big serve,” Sinner said of Fritz on Friday, after his own semifinal victory over Jack Draper of Great Britain. “Very solid player from the back of the court. He can hit strong. He can hit with rotation. He can mix up the game very well.”

Just like Sinner himself, who beat Draper in straight sets, 7-5, 7-6 (3), 6-2. (Draper vomited three times during the match; he attributed his sickness to a combination of humid conditions and anxious feelings). Sinner, who’s already won the other hardcourt major, the Australian Open, earlier this year, entered the tournament under a doping controversy cloud. He danced around the subject, when asked after his win how he’s been able to compartmentalize his off-court issue. “Just trying to find confidence throughout the days,” said Sinner.

The doping imbroglio, however, shouldn’t take anything away from Sinner’s accomplishments in New York. His two positive tests, for trace amounts of a banned steroid, came in March. He denied intentionally using the substance; a tennis integrity investigation found Sinner’s explanation “credible,” and a tribunal concluded that the amount of steroids he took were so small they would not have had “any… performance enhancing effect on the player.”

Plus, the two positive tests came in March. Not in January, during his Australian Open win. And not in September. Sinner’s on the verge of bookending the year with Grand Slam victories, a feat that firmly pits him against Alcaraz for post-Nadal, post-Djokovic supremacy.

To counterbalance what’s sure to be a pro-Fritz crowd on Sunday, Sinner will look across the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean too. “In my mind, I know that there are many people watching from home from Italy,” he said. “It's just, take some support from them.”

Fritz, meanwhile, grew emotional during his on-court interview with another American player, Chris Eubanks, who’s worked for ESPN since losing in the U.S. Open first round last week. Eubanks reminded Fritz he’s the first American to reach the U.S. Open final in 18 years (Roger Federer beat Roddick in four sets in 2006). His voice started to choke up. “I'm more of an emotional person when I'm happy,” Fritz said afterwards. “I cry at happy endings of movies, and not at sad stuff.”

And no matter the results on Sunday, Fritz feels like it’s a feel-good time for American tennis. Tiafoe promised to be back to contend. Ben Shelton, a U.S. Open semifinalist a year ago, is just 21. Tommy Paul, ranked No. 14 in the world, won a doubles Olympics bronze with Fritz in Paris, reached the Australian Open semis in 2023, and made the Indian Wells semis this year.

“We're knocking on the door of winning a slam,” said Fritz. “We have this generation, this group of guys where there's, like, four or five of us that are, like, actually at this level. I mean, it shows that we're all moving in the right direction. I think that whenever one of us does something, the others follow. The others get belief from it.”

“Yeah, I think this is just the start for all of us,” he concluded.