“I feel like I always had the idea that it was cool to do what your parents did, so I played tennis,” Taylor Fritz said in 2023. The truth is, he was good at a number of sports, and the choice to pursue solely tennis came at age 15. Fritz had grown up playing baseball, lacrosse, football, basketball, and soccer. But given the genes that he had inherited from his parents, the current American World No. 1 chose the racquet sport above all else. Today, he has surpassed a record his mom set almost half a century ago.

Scripting history at the US Open with his countryman and friend Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz is into the semifinals. Whoever wins, it will be the first time since 2009 that an American man plays a final at a Grand Slam. Andy Roddick did it last at Wimbledon, only to lose to Roger Federer. Roddick was also the last American man to lift the US Open trophy in 2003. Taylor Fritz might be next.

Interestingly, Fritz’s mom Kathy May was once ranked World No. 10, but she took an early retirement from the sport at 24, citing the reason as getting tired of life on the Tour. But in the six years she played as a pro, May accumulated three Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances, including the 1977 and 1978 French Opens and the 1978 US Open. Her son, on the other hand, already has five career QF appearances at majors.

Now, for the first time in the Fritz family, a tennis player has reached the semifinals of a Grand Slam. As the official account of US Open pointed out on X, “Taylor Fritz and mom Kathy May have eight career Grand Slam quarterfinal appearances combined, spanning from 1977 Roland-Garros to the 2024 US Open. Today, one of them reached the semifinals for the first time. The 47-year-old curse has been lifted 🙌”

And to think, there was a time when Fritz was actually unsure which sport to pursue! “I liked tennis, but to be honest, I went through periods when I was younger where I hated it and didn’t want to play because I enjoyed other sports much more,” the 26-year-old told Haute Living in August 2023. “There was never pressure from my parents to play, so I just tried everything until I hit an age [15] where I had to make a decision and pick one.”

Now while May had a short career, Fritz’s father Guy Fritz had an even shorter one. Instead, he turned to coaching junior players and his resume includes names like CoCo Vandeweghe, who won the 2008 junior US Open title. Of course, Fritz Sr. coached his son as well, but the parents had different approaches when it came to tennis instruction.

Despite Guy Fritz’s Coach of the Year trophy, Kathy May was a proponent of Taylor Fritz getting “another coach”

When we look at father-son coaching relationships like Apostolos and Stefanos Tsitsipas, it seems better if the family does not get involved. Even with the Fritzes, Guy wanted to coach Taylor but mom Kathy thought it was better to keep the personal and professional life private.

“From the time he was born, all I thought about was making him a champion,” Guy Fritz said, per The New York Magazine. In his own words, Taylor Fritz is the kind of athlete who does well when positive instead of negative criticism is given. But Kathy wanted a different coach for Taylor. “I told him (Guy Fritz) a long time ago that Taylor should get another coach. He just felt like he was the best coach and cared more than anyone, which is true,” she said.

Now while Guy Fritz may have been named US Olympic Development Coach of the Year 2016, some things are just not meant to work out. The family still attends Taylor’s matches and still supports him whenever needed. And while their input is valuable, Taylor Fritz would rather have his circles not mingle so deeply!