Taylor Fritz was unable to explain how he let a two-set lead slip against Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo as he became one of six top-10 seeds to be eliminated from the men’s draw in the first week of the US Open.<\/p>\n
The American ninth seed was in complete control and went an early break up in the third set, only for 24th seed Cerundolo to produce a shock 3-6 4-6 6-3 6-4 6-4 win to reach the fourth round.<\/p>\n
Less than an hour later, fifth seed Flavio Cobolli of Italy fell to a 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 6-0 6-3 defeat by Belgium’s Alexander Blockx, opening up the men’s draw even further.<\/p>\n
However, German top seed Alexander Zverev did survive. The French Open champion won 6-2 7-6 (7-2) 6-2 against Chilean 25th seed Alejandro Tabilo to move into the last 16.<\/p>\n
“I don’t even know what to say,” Fritz said. “I don’t really want to talk to anybody, see anybody.<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p>\n
Fritz, a finalist at Flushing Meadows in 2024, was bidding to become the fifth American through to the fourth round at this year’s tournament. <\/p>\n
With world number one Jannik Sinner out injured and Carlos Alcaraz only recently returned from a long-term wrist problem, excitement has been growing there may finally be another home winner in the men’s singles – 23 years on from Andy Roddick’s triumph.<\/p>\n
That chance remains with Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe, Tommy Paul, Alex Michelsen and Learner Tien left – but Fritz will know he has let a golden opportunity slip.<\/p>\n
Cerundolo and 28th seed Blockx will now meet in the fourth round with a place in the quarter-finals up for grabs. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Taylor Fritz was unable to explain how he let a two-set lead slip against Argentina’s Francisco Cerundolo as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":761915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-761914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=761914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/761914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/761915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=761914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=761914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=761914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}