The United States team entered the 2026 United Cup as defending champions and recently clashed against Team Argentina, which had defeated Team Spain in their first match. The ATP World No. 6 Taylor Fritz, who is headlining the team with WTA World No. 3 Coco Gauff, has recently shared his assessment of how he played the match, which fell short of his usual standards.
Taylor Fritz Honestly Reflects on His Flaws Against Argentina’s Sebastian Baez
Fritz leads a successful history with Team USA in the United Cup tournament, whose fourth edition is scheduled to be played from January 2 to 11 across Perth and Sydney in the RAC Arena and Ken Rosewall Arena. He won the United Cup’s inaugural trophy in 2023, along with Frances Tiafoe, Madison Keys, and Jessica Pegula.
He won the 2025 title with Gauff, who was making her debut, accompanied by other American stars. He had clinched four wins from his five matches, defeating Zhizhen Zhang, Tomas Machac, Hubert Hurkacz, and Borna Coric en route to the title.
For their 2026 run, Team USA faced Team Argentina in their opener, where Fritz lost the match to Sebastian Baez; however, Gauff positively handled the helm, defeating Solana Sierra in singles and, in doubles with Christian Harrison, defeating Maria Lourdes Carle and Guido Andreozzi, claiming USA’s victory.
Regarding his performance, Fritz highlighted the areas in which he lacked, and while expressing his upset feelings, he added, “It’s not the way I want to start off the year. There’s definitely a lot of rust showing. I feel like he raised his level, especially in the third set, but also at times in the second set. I think the first set just from both of us wasn’t a super high level. You know, both of us making a lot of errors.” (via ASAP Text)
He also reflected on how Baez took hold of the game, which ultimately led to his downfall in the match, “Ultimately in the end in the first set I won it because I put balls in the court, and he made mistakes. He started mentally cutting down on the mistakes, being very steady, but also dictating and being able to attack. For me, the ball just felt like it was really flying on me. I didn’t feel like I had the control I wanted when I was trying to be offensive.”
Apart from mentioning the key moments, Fritz also revealed that his serving let him down, as he concluded his game with a score of 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.
“Yeah, I couldn’t really do the things I wanted out there. Then I just had a couple of games where I served very poorly. He played solid. I was struggling to beat him from the back. He was beating me from the back a lot. The bad serving games really cost me.”
In the next match, Team USA will face off against Team Spain on January 5, with Fritz taking on Jaume Munar and Gauff facing Jessica Bouzas Maneiro.
