What happened after ‘Break Point’ covered Taylor Fritz’s disappointing US Open defeat?

WATCH: Fritz has made a solid start to his grass-court swing, winning his first round of Queen's Club on Tuesday.

Taylor Fritz arrived to the 2022 US Open poised to make a deep run at his home Grand Slam, and Break Point cameras were there to cover what was meant to be the pinnacle of his breakthrough season.

“It woke me up to how close I really am to the very, very top,” Fritz said in Episode 8, titled Fairytale in New York, of his monumental victory at the BNP Paribas Open back in March of that year. “And it’s a really good feeling.”

There were ultimately few good feelings to be found in Flushing Meadows for Fritz, who took to Grandstand court to begin his quest for Grand Slam glory against ostensibly unheralded American Brandon Holt.

While Break Point makes little hay over Fritz’s opponent, tennis fans knew that Holt was already one of the stories of a tournament yet to begin. The 24-year-old was not only making his major main-draw debut after battling through an arduous week of qualifying, but Holt just so happens to be the son of former No. 1 and two-time US Open champion Tracy Austin.

That kind of tennis DNA doesn’t run through the veins of just any journeyman, and Holt channeled that inspiration into a stunning four-set victory over a shellshocked Fritz.

“People actually had me as one of the favorites to win the event,” Fritz says in confessional. “And I believed it.

“It’s always really tough when you put a lot of expectations on one specific tournament,” he adds in the locker room after the match. “I always say I don’t like doing that. I like to just play every tournament like it’s the same, but the reality is, obviously, it’s not the same. There’s four tournaments that are substantially more important than all the other ones.”

Fritz soon recovers from his so-called “shit match” to end 2022 on a high, qualifying for his first ATP Finals in Turin and reaching the semifinals.

How has the American fared in 2023? So far, major success has continued to elude him with early exits at both the Australian Open and Roland Garros, but the world No. 8 is showing improved consistency on the Masters 1000 level, reaching back-to-back quarterfinals at the BNP Paribas Open and Miami Open while enjoying his best clay-court result of his career with a semifinal finish in Monte Carlo.

“Last year I was super up and down,” he mused in Paris earlier this month. “I either lost first or second round in tournaments, or I just won the tournament.

“Then this year it's the opposite. I'm not having a lot of early exits. I'm seeing myself pretty deep in tournaments, consistently playing a lot better, I'd say. But yeah, I've just lost some of those later-stage matches this year. That wasn't the case last year.

“So, I just have to keep putting myself in these situations, and I'll win some eventually.”

Fritz has a solid chance of making that breakthrough on the Wimbledon grass, where he nearly beat Rafael Nadal last year, and coming into another US Open summer as the American to watch.

Might this be a Season 2 storyline in the making?

Click here to read the official Baseline review of Break Point, now streaming on Netflix.