Fritz, Tiafoe & Navarro AMERICAN Semi Finalists 🇺🇸 | US Open 2024 | GTL Tennis Podcast

Intro the Americans are roaring on at the US Open they can't stop winning and we have three Americans in the semis Emma novaro Taylor Fritz and Francis TFO sabalenka looks great too and it's not good for bza she completely bottled [Music] it that's right the American dream they Fritz v Zverev call it and there are three people currently living it right now now Francis Tio went through last last night he took out gigo dimitro we had Emma Navaro taken out bza and the match we're going to start with Taylor Fritz took out Zev for a second successive slam and he did this one in even more impressive fashion than he did at Wimbledon it was 76 36 64 76 and Taylor Fritz starting to look like a man that can really really mix it in a grand slam I'm really liking the evolution of Taylor Fritz and I think he really like embraced the moment that's the one thing I'd take away from this Taylor Fritz performance normally he's playing Novak jovic in a quarterfinal normally it's too much for him in this quarterfinal he was playing Zev he had the whole crowd on his side he was playing great tennis and he got the Victory and didn't bottle it brilliant from Taylor Fritz yeah before I speak about the match I want to give a shout out to all of our American viewers I believe it is our most popular demographic so shout out to you guys because you're going to be witnessing something very special and it's 19 years in the making the first all americ men's US Open semi-final since 2005 I don't remember one for a very long time I would have been only very young at uh back in 2005 and being in New York makes it more special the US Open to have so many American players who have a chance to go on and win this tournament I think adds that extra Dynamic we know what the crowds are like in New York they're going to be very excited to have an American in the final we've not seen it since well obviously on the women's Coco go but on the men's for a very very long time and they're good value too because I don't want to be dismissive of cner and Medford because they are fantastic tennis players sin arguably been the best player this year up there with Adas for sure but I feel this has a bit of air on of of uncertainty in this final because as much as I keep saying C or medv whoever wins that will win the whole thing because they've got to play each other before the final we don't know what state they're going to be following that match I honestly believe it has the making of a sixh hour classic and on that basis that's going to only help the American Duo who both have really big serves who I think even if it is to go four or five sets will be a lot quicker than say a medfi ever uh C match on that basis if they are able to get to or one of them will get to the final whoever that is I think their chances in this final would be better uh knowing that they've got this Medford Evans s have this big semi in in store yeah the one thing that I think is on their side and it's the sort of thing I didn't really think about going into the Zev uh Fritz match there are a lot of quick points on these courts um I expected there to be not as much rallying between Fritz and Sev I thought we'd see more a serve heavy performance I think the person I was more impressed with was Taylor Fritz on his serve he looked more comfortable and Z wasn't able to get into the Taylor Fritz service game as often as Fritz was able to get into his I think on uh Sinner and meddev I think we could see a lot of fast games as well and I think even if it's a tiebreak set you could still find yourself having a five set match which is around about the 4H hour mark still I think but you never know with medev he keeps the rally going for forever sometimes similar with cner though like cner has the ability to return extremely well and I think that one is not geared up to be fast points I think it is going to be a real SLO and a ridiculous battle well s meev if it is if I'm perfectly honest yeah and that's why I think he's got a good shot of winning and why I predict him to win speaking about this one I think you've summed it up nicely Taylor Fritz played a really good match I thought Zev in spells was there the best shot of the match probably was Alex verev the one where he whipped that forehand into the little corner I don't know how he did it if you saw how low the ball was I think it was a volley which Taylor Fritz sort of cushioned into the other side of the Court Zev got there and then found a winner sort of bending it round the angle was amazing and his reaction was was quite funny too um probably the best shot of the tournament I I really really enjoyed especially the slowmo I highly recommend watching it and forev now we I've been saying how he's had probably one of his best years he's back to his best following the injury he had at Roland gas with rolling his ankle against Rafa but what's he got to show for it and it's the same old he's having a fantastic year and on paper should have made this final and he's not done it again and this is what he's done this year you can see against Daniel medv at the Australian Open youd have to remind me of all the rounds because I don't remember what round each one was I think this could be maybe semi I'm going to guess or was it quarterfinal but you can see he was uh two sets to one up two points away on serve lost it alarz he was two sets to one up lost it Fritz two sets to love up on serve lost it and then most recently you can see again I mean this one's not so bad it was one set all for all but still ended up losing and in the slams he's come so close but yet so far because he doesn't he's not able to close out big matches in these big tournaments he's 27 years old now he's approaching his career high uh if not already I don't think he is is he two in the world right now I did see something like that maybe the other day when I was looking I mean he's close to his alltime high which is is number two but yet he looks further away from winning the slam than than ever because nobody really believes in him and I don't think he does I think when he gets to a semi or even a final he going to be two sets up and he's probably going to lose he's not going to be able to close out these things 27 years old the other players getting better I can make the statement now I think Zev will never ever win a grand slam wow I think his chances in 202 before he's not had what he's not been able to do it he's not been able to secure things and he showed to me he doesn't have the ability well definitely has the ability he doesn't have the mental ability to win a grand slam yeah he's had well the best opportunity which was during Co obviously that US Open against Dominic team and that was the biggest throwaway out of all of them and I don't know this was another good one I don't know if that comes into his mind though D in these big matches that he's unable to get back into a really good winning mindset because he's always being haunted by the past in his mind that's going to be something you have to go and see like speak to maybe a psychologist about someone maybe a hypnotist or something can help him get that over the line because once you get to those big business end moments it seems that his serve isn't as like frequent the first one he gets a lot of second serve sometimes double faults sometimes just hits in the bottom of the net like yesterday he said it was one of the worst matches he'd played I don't know what's what's wrong the crowd obviously not being on his side I don't think he copes with that as well as what Novak jovic does jovic brilliant if the crowd's against him Sev not great but like didn't really like play up to the crowd meddev uses it in his favor Zev doesn't I mean it just he went into a shell didn't look that great and Taylor Fritz took a advantage and I thought this was a really nice tweet that was put out by basan saying after losing to Zev in Wimbledon 20121 Fritz wrote a note to himself saying nobody in the whole world is underachieving harder than you you are so effing good but 40 in the world get your effing together uh so that's what he sent wrote to himself and it was obviously tweeted by uh Morgan riddle just saying that this is how much obviously Taylor Fritz wanted this and how much pressure he puts on himself he knows what everybody else is saying but he is the one who has to go out there on the court and actually make it happen and I think fair play to Taylor Fritz I think he gets a lot of stick we give him a lot of stick as well especially in Grand Slams now jovic I've seen him over the course of past years the gradual evolution of Taylor Fritz and you're starting to see him look a lot more solid off backand forehand serve and now we're starting to see the big moments is when he's starting to look a little bit more sure of himself and going for shots I I was a bit angry at him in certain moments I was like don't get angry at him because he going for it in a big moment there was a breakpoint opportunity went for a big forehand missed it and I was like I actually not annoyed at him for that now because I think if he in the past he would have just kept the rally going and got wiped off the court so why not just keep going for it play aggressive if you lose you lose but at least you gave it a shot and that's what he's doing now and see it's paying off so and look who's in the stands cheering him on as always uh when you take a peek at the updated men's singles draw and you can see Morgan having a little look over her Shades there always cheering him on who's our friend you know I don't know to be honest probably just somebody another influencer who's just been fed along I know you're very much in the know with celebrity influencers so Tik Tok tell me probably someone who uh yeah I'm sure in the influencer world I'm not the person to come to for influencer Stuff uh my I'm still reading newspapers so uh what this now means Ben is the big American semi-final let's touch on that Francis tfar is the other person who went through and I'm just looking at the Tiafoe v Dimitrov matchup between Fritz and TFO Fritz is the heavy favorite 1.4 they really fancy him he's got a great opportunity to make the final and what this means for American tennis is huge and we need to focus on this American Resurgence because it's been a long time in the com in coming and we got Luca putting in a tweet saying after 19 years and 75 75 slam tournaments there will be another men's semifinal between two players from America Taylor and TFO and if you look at per the decade uh and this is semi-finals 2010 to 2019 zero 2000 to 2009 only two uh 1990 to 99 14 and 1980 to 1989 23 so tennis in the 80s for Americans was brilliant and then it's been gradually declining year on year and really from the year 2000 onwards American men have not performed very well in slams um is this is this a turning point my first question and do you think what this now means is having the confidence of these two getting there it's going to inspire other Americans like the Tommy Pauls uh to to make the step to try and get into a semifinal and are we going to see these guys regularly making it in all of the slams there especially the hard ones we've well we've got so many great Americans who are sort of uh coming through the rankings as well some young michelson's one who's just sort of like launched himself on the scene he looks really good we obviously have Ben Shelton definitely a main stay on the tour now we've got uh Ethan Quinn another good one Martin Dam larner Tenn you start to see that name coming up he's only 18 years old as well so there's a lot of uh exciting stuff I would say the one of the most I'd say Australia has a lot of exciting players Italy has a lot of players I'd say Czech Republic a lot of exciting players I wish Britain had few more people coming through but I think Fernley is one that I've after Wimbledon I'm keeping a close eye and I think he's a really good player so um we're not it's not all down in the dumps in the UK but the other countries definitely putting a lot more emphasis especially America this whole college tennis thing seems to really bring through a lot of young Talent so exciting times for the United States and I think this matchup I think TFO should be the underdog based upon their head-to-head as well he is 6-1 down so do you think that plays a big factor in this or is this now just a like a Cup match like when you get like I don't know second division team playing a first division team and then they go into a cup and it form goes out the window I think um you're talking to the wrong guy because as this podcast has progressed I've look I've not looked into head tohe heads as much as what I did before you still like them I think they mean very little uh in the grand scheme of things in some matchups you can look at them but in the majority you can't this is a slam semi-final at the US Open I think all the other matches mean nothing um and the last bit of this tweet which I didn't get to was it's also going to be the first men's slam semi-final between two players not ranked inside the top 10 since Anderson and Buster the US Open in 2017 so um another thing to consider yeah that is pretty crazy uh I like this tweet from Francis TFO as well he came out with one saying it's not like it once was we have made a made a quarterfinal and play Rafer and you're already looking at your flight so there is that type of feeling at the US Open this year where people just feel like they had more of a shot and the way he got past dimitrov I thought was impressive dimitrov bit disappointed that he retired at 4-1 to be honest I thought he could have saw that match out I don't know how bad the injury was I don't even know what the injury was but there was part of me feeling like he sort of had just given up by the end and just just H threw in the towel y agreed good assessment and it is frustrating because it's not the first time it's happened um he's retired now mid-match seven out of 56 Majors played so that's one in every eight which is quite a few really if you think about it and that dates all the way back from 2009 Wimbledon he also um retired mid match this year at win wooden 24 so seems to be a little bit of a a fee with Gregor dimitro when the going gets tough in these slams and he's losing he just retires but he wasn't playing well enough he's played a lot better throughout the whole tournament he's had a brilliant year he's a lot more consistent than what he was once upon a time and I think this was a little bit of a wasted opportunity because I predicted predicted grigor to win he's got the ability to beat a TFO for sure yeah and he just didn't turn up TFO wanted it more he definitely it y yeah for sure uh we got his his uh obviously his interview with Chris Eubanks is the thing that always makes the headlines and uh he said what is it about New York City that brings out the best in you and Francis said New York City the best atmosphere in the world the best arena in the world named after the late great Arthur RH uh that just alone uh yeah that just alone lights a fire under me uh I love to perform on the biggest stages biggest Arena's biggest moments that's ultimately what it is and just so we can see Francis here he looking a little we know have medev had the treatment I think Francis is even worse he now looks 4 foot tall to Chris euu banks in this interview what do you make of what of his comments there and do you think that he maybe has the advantage on Taylor Fritz with being better at dealing with big moments in New York it's that's why it's a fascinating match that's why the head-to head means nothing can you see how you've just completely rolled out the head to-head by saying that statement it's all going to be about the occasion and who handles it better because they're both fantastic tennis players they've both got big serves and they got they can find winners from all over ability wise their peaks are not that much different I'd say t u FR uh Taylor frit probably slightly better as an overall tennis player however if they both play their best there's not going to be much in it on this occasion the point is how high can they reach what what opt optimal level can they perform at a grand slam semi-final at home in America with the crowd going crazy and TFO probably on paper I think can handle that occasion better than Taylor Fritz on that basis you'd have to favor him and give him a good shot to win uh but we're not going to give any predictions now we're going to save that for tomorrow and we do all of our semi-final predictions in one video and this is a good one from Van the last time an American man was in the final of a major Instagram didn't exist iPads didn't exist Federer's twin girls weren't born Mir and D was 2 years old Harry Potter and the half blooded Prince movie hadn't been released and Dinara Safina was world number one I can add one there as well Ben was only 30 years old as well yeah I mean were you born back then I can't can't work it out but yeah I think we've spoken enough about the men's let's move on to the women and there's one lady who is absolutely storming through the draw we thought could it be a close match but then we thought we're going to go straight sets because we know it makes sense and it is Alina sabalenka absolutely battered Kim win Jang it Sabalenka v Zheng wasn't even close and it was one of the one most one-sided quarterfinals especially of this tournament but that I've seen in recent years 61 62 for sabalenka and as I said I think it finally came to a head playing the Olympics it can only like the tiredness is going to come on eventually the fatigue and I think this this was the match yeah and she was asked King wiing xang about finishing at 2 a.m. uh after after her in today's match against saena sh of course it affects a lot I was not able to practice but there are other players who finish really late so I can't complain I think it's an accumulation of finish in late the Olympics um and a few other variables as well she had a fantastic tournament that was going to always be her ceiling I'm not surprised it was really one-sided sabalenka the way she's playing right now nobody can beat her and I'm not going to say any more about it because I feel like we've repeated ourself on every episode speaking about saena uh but now this is uh she has become the first player to reach the women's semi-final at both the Australian and the US Open in back-to-back year since Serena Williams very consistent on the hard courts I think we can agree it is her best surface the hard courts um she's not too bad on clay and and grass now to be fair very versatile but hardcore to being her best let's see if she can goes on and win it I think she she needs to win this tournament I'll be fascinated if it is a final against eager uh if eager can pose any problems is she going to come to the net more is she going to have to play Ultra aggressive will she be able to even contain her that is a fascinating one on paper I just want to see how it plays out because it's a slam final and that's where Saba sometimes can dip playing against the top player aside from that I can't really comment too much much on this match or King Wings there's no guarantee uh that eager's going to get there and this is the one thing we we should throw into the equation because this is an allamerican podcast today and eager is playing an an American who's never made it to the semifinals of a slam as well so we could have three firsttime slam semifinalists uh in well coming from America TFO being the only one who's already been there before this that could be crazy this could be the year for Jess Pula she's seeing what's going on in all these other players from her country the crowds surely are going to be getting behind her as well trying to get her into the semifinals Imagine That America could have two men and two women in the semifinals of Islam they're guaranteed a a man in the final that's amazing in itself they could potentially have an all American women's final could you imagine that I've imagined it and then it's faded because uh Jess J Fula um is not beating eag so I don't want to ruin your whole build up there but I just don't see happening what about Navaro sabalenka I I want to speak about Navaro in depth so before we do let's just touch on sabba because I do have another tweet I don't know if you want to bring it up I quite like it it's funny ping me and and this is Bastian Fen I sent it to you earlier it said it cost it it could cost her I read the top one so Arena offer to pay the drinks for everybody in exchange for supporting the next round she doesn't know honey juice is a $23 a piece and Ash has a capacity of 23,000 people she just wants to be loved she wants the crowd to get behind her they don't seem to in a lot of events she plays so Bastion Fen done the maths and it would cost her $529,000 to buy everyone one of them what's it called honey juices honey juice and the prize money difference between semi-final and finalist is 800,000 she generally does play worse when the crowd's against her just to have a look at 2023 US Open final so it could be a very profitable gamble if she buys everyone a drink for them to get on her side she would gain from that situation what the difference of that almost what almost 300,000 well I'm going to save her a few quid here because I reckon that there's probably a few children there in the crowd as well so you can probably like chop out another 100,000 there so she could probably bring it down a little bit but I reckon there'll probably be some parents out there going like yeah get one for from a kid as well just have two just on the side yeah they'll just be lying about how many people are there watching uh but well is she going to do it will we see a big line of Honey juices coming up are the bar people going to just be going crazy at the US Open I would love to see it I'd love to see him all lined up uh all of the people from the stands afterwards all just there waiting but that could be a ridiculous scenario let's move on oh you want to go to Navaro first go on then we'll go to Navaro first and then I'll talk about the well capitulation let's say of paa bza well I mean they go hand in hand it's the same match so we'll talk about the capitulation first I guess yeah yeah Navarro v Badosa do are up 51 um and then ends up losing 75 what happened she lost five points in the last six games Emma Navaro what a season she's having was it a case of Navaro turning it up or did bza just completely bottle it I mean watching the match when I saw bza 51 up I was like oh my predictions looking pretty good I went for dozer in three and then to watch what happened I don't I feel like sometimes she just forgets how to play tennis that's all I could really put it down to Emma navara's level was great throughout so we can't take it away from her but paa bza was playing fantastically well and then suddenly just stopped being able to serve properly stopped being able to hit through the balls it was going in the net constantly it was going wide long and Navaro must have thought this is all right I'm not even having to really do a lot to win these points cuz they were just being thrown it and as soon as it got to 54 I thought you got one last chance here PA don't worry one more service game she got broken to love I mean I was it was literally I couldn't even make it up and then after that you just knew she'd lost I was like there's no way she comes back now and wins this and she didn't she lost the next two games Dar and dusted I mean I felt sorry for her but I like the way she took it in her stride she actually said if you'd have told me I'd be in this position now like earlier in the year i' I'm actually going to take a positive from this so I'm actually happy with how I've like recovered this season and got to the position I'm in so fair play to her seeing the brighter side but she won't want to she won't want to rewatch that match let me tell you that yeah bedow has secured sort of top 20 for now which is amazing for her she's back to where brilant she should be but Emma Navaro is the big story she's now eight in the world just behind King Wing xang if she is to win the US Open this may surp surprise you she will leap for a Coco go into six so she'll be higher in the rankings than Coco go and if you think about before the year we didn't really know much about her at all no one had her inside the top 10 she looks like she's going to qualify for the race the women's race to be in the tour finals at the end of the year here and she has the the ability to go on and win the US Open I think she's that good she is having such a good season across all the surfaces doing some great stuff flying the flag for America and another name you can put in there with Taylor Fritz and TFO she's equally as impressive as all of them and all three of them are dangerous players and you cannot rule them out at the US Open I don't care if you've got sabalenka there I don't care if you've got Yanik s and Daniel medv them three American an are super dangerous and they've got chances at the US Open to win the whole thing wow you heard it here first um she's a massive Underdog against sabalenka fours sabalenka 1.25 on the betting odds that's fair I think just considering how sabalenka has been playing and novaro though we said it against Coco goof um um what was the last match he said it against B as well she's if she's an underdog in a match at the moment I feel that she's a really good person to take a bet on like because she's her level hasn't dipped that's the one thing you haven't really seen her go whoa It's been a bit of a wobbly tourament like up and down consistent that's the one thing that she brings and if Sabal Lena like she said there and like basan said when the crowd aren't on her side she does suffer so that all the crowd are going to be cheering on Emma Navaro Sabal Lena may come unstuck the serve may be like a little bit patchy she might be stopped serving because of the crowd and they'll see that it's affecting and they'll do it more and then you'll get Emma Navaro come through at 3 to one if you want to put a bet on there we go I think we've wrap it up there thank you everyone for listening that is a US Open Roundup uh of some of the quarterfinal action next up we've got some more quarterfinals right no we on the quarter no we've got some more quals and then from there we'll be doing a semifinal prediction video uh this time tomorrow to speak about the last quarterfinals and then the semi-finals with our predictions it's hotting up at the US Open shout out to the American viewers it is I think our biggest demographic so I'm sure your you guys are going to be really pleased and excited to see if one of your guys can go on and win you got three big chances four if you count Pula but I know Ben only big on her well I'm going to be cheering on later on today Jack Draper the final hope for Great Britain come on Jack get past demor get to that semifinal and then we'll see if meddev or Sina who fances it who wants a bit of Draper come on do it for Britain yeah I'm really looking forward to the Jack Draper one I'm I'm definitely going to be supporting him I'm going to watch the full match sit down and relax with a nice beer hopefully you do too and we'll see you tomorrow come on Jack [Music]