UrbanUpdate

The debate over who will carry the mantle for American men’s tennis has raged since Andy Roddick retired in 2012. But of the 13 Americans currently ranked within the top 100, perhaps no one has more potential upside than 24-year-old Taylor Fritz. His SoCal roots, lanky frame, and monster serve have drawn comparisons over the years to Pete Sampras, but in reality his game is crafted far more in the likeness of a young Juan Martín del Potro—the prototype for the mobile giants flooding the ATP rankings who can cover every inch of the court and hit winners with improbable pace from even more improbable angles.

That unique combination of size and athleticism has helped propel Fritz to the strongest season-start of his career. First, at the Australian Open, where he made his deepest run at a Major yet and took world no. 4 Stefanos Tsitsipas to the limit in one of the most entertaining matches of the entire tournament. Then, last month at Indian Wells, where he followed up an upset over no. 7 Andrey Rublev with the biggest victory of his life—taking down one of the GOATs, Rafa Nadal, in the championship match and putting an end to Nadal’s 2022 undefeated streak.

Now ranked 13th in the world, Fritz has firmly cemented himself as one to watch as he looks to carry the momentum he’s built up into this upcoming French Open. We caught up with the top-ranked American to discuss how his diet fuels him through epic five-set matches, the difficulties of putting on muscle as a tennis player, and the woes of cramping on the court.

GQ: We’re heading into the clay-court season and the French Open. I’m curious, with such a dramatic change with both the court surface and the elements, does your diet differ at all when preparing for one of the four Grand Slam tournaments?

Taylor Fritz: The different surfaces, no, the diet is the same. There is a difference when I'm at the Grand Slam tournaments, though, preparing to potentially be playing a four-hour, five-set match, which is something we only do at four tournaments of the year. I might see myself in the days before just eating and drinking a lot more than I normally would to really try and fuel myself up for a potential four-hour match. I kind of have to force myself to eat more.

In my mind, the hydration aspect of preparing for a potential five-set match would be the most important thing, and I’d probably forget that I need more food, too. How much more food are we talking about the day before?

I’m probably trying to get a whole extra meal. Typically at any other tournament where we’re playing three sets, that can still be a long match, but I know I trust my fitness and the work I’ve put in. So it's no different than a regular practice day, where I’ll have just a normal sized breakfast and then lunch and dinner with my normal snacking and protein routine in between those meals. That is plenty for most tournaments. But when I’m at a Grand Slam, I'm probably trying to do the same—and then add a second dinner into it.

So typically speaking, what does your diet look like day-to-day?

When I wake up, the first thing I do is just start drinking water. Especially really cold water. Who knows if this is true or not, but I read that cold water first thing in the morning kind of speeds up your general metabolism for the day. So I do that. Breakfast is a mix of different things. Sometimes it's oatmeal with protein powder. Or sometimes if I'm in a rush I can do like, egg white bites. I don't eat a ton for breakfast, but I'm trying to get as much protein as possible out of a smaller meal.

Then I head to the courts where typically I'll do my workout first. I take the Optimum Nutrition pre-workout before I work out, and drink water, as well. Once I finish my workout, I’ll have my protein shake along with Stryve beef sticks. That’s something I’m usually snacking on throughout the day, just to get an extra bit of protein. I’m a bigger guy, you know, and I burn a ridiculous amount of calories a day. So I feel like it’s really important for me to have multiple sources of protein. A lot of people just do a shake, but that extra type of snack really helps keep my protein up.

With lunch I kind of gauge it on how tough my day is. If I didn't feel like I really burned a ton of calories, I can go for a salad or something with chickpeas and then double chicken or double steak in the salad. If I feel like I had a pretty brutal workout, plus tennis, I’ll maybe go for a bowl from Chipotle or something. I feel like I need those extra carbs to kind of replenish if I felt like I had a pretty tough day.

After lunch, I might have another tennis practice. So after that, once again I’ll have a protein snack like Stryve. It's just clean, straight, easy protein. And then for dinner, I’ll do something pretty simple, like steak or chicken with some kind of pasta, rice, or sweet potatoes. One thing I'm not great at is eating vegetables. I'm not a big, big vegetable guy. My diet is really just super high protein and then carbs according to how tough my day was.

I’ve heard you talk in the past about how you put a big emphasis on getting a lot of protein, given your frame and how tall you are. Is the amount of protein you’re consuming to maintain where you’re at now, or are you actively trying to put on muscle?

That's the thing that's so, so difficult about tennis. Typically, for most people, you’re going to want to eat a ton of food—a ton of protein—to gain weight and build muscle. Then you're going to do a cut to lose the weight but keep the muscle. You can't really do that as a professional tennis player because we play 11 months out of the year. There's not a time to really bulk and cut. So I'm looking to become as lean as I possibly can while still building muscle. For me, that's where eating calories and carbs according to how the day went comes into play. I'm eating to maintain my weight, but still burn fat and gain muscle.

Most Popular

CultureShea Whigham Is Always Wearing a Historical HatBy Gabriella Paiella

Sales (Style)All the Sweaters Are on Sale Right NowBy Reed Nelson

GQ RecommendsThe Best Baggy Jeans Are Taking Their Victory LapBy Leon Hedgepeth

Every athlete I’ve spoken to is extremely particular about what they eat and when on game day. A match day for you—let’s say it’s a night match—does your routine change at all?

Okay, so a night match, or even a match at, like, five or six o'clock: Honestly, I'll just sleep in and have a later breakfast and a later lunch. I’m adjusting my whole time clock so that I’m going to bed later and sleeping in until around noon. That way when I’m playing my match later in the day, I’m feeling fully awake.

I rarely have three meals before I play a match. The only time that happens is if it's quite a late match, like 10 p.m. or something like that. The Australian Open, for example, was two meals before my matches. Whenever I do wake up, breakfast will probably be an omelet—a ham and cheese omelet, or ham and bacon, omelet, and hashbrowns. I'll eat a bigger breakfast on match days than I normally do on a training day, just because I know that when I get closer to the match, I don't like to eat a lot of food. So I want to get a big meal first thing in the morning. Getting a lot of protein and carbs in. And for lunch before a match, I'm going to keep it super plain. I'm just going to have something like plain pasta with a little bit of chicken, and not much of it. That's literally it. Otherwise I’m just drinking a ton of water all day, and maybe I’ll have some energy chews or something right before the match.

I'd say more of the eating actually comes the day before the match. The day of the match, I really don't like to overdo it. I feel like if I eat a ton the day of that I will feel a bit heavy. All the preparation, eating and drinking, comes the day before the match. For my pre-match meal the night before I play, I pretty religiously stick to eating steak and a ton of mashed potatoes. That's like, every single night before I play a big match what I want to eat.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever read it, but Andre Agassi’s memoir constantly mentions the recovery drinks his trainer would force him to have after a match in order to be ready for the next match. Does your recovery routine follow a similar ideology?

Immediately after I get off the court, I'm going to have an Optimum Nutrition shake and I'm going to have my Stryve beef jerky. I need that instant protein. And if I just had a long, five-set match at a Slam, as far as food goes, I really don’t care what it is. I just know that I need to eat. Sometimes I’ll finish a match at 11 o’clock and places are closed and the options for food aren’t incredible. So I don’t even care if it’s not, like, a super-healthy option. I just know that the number-one priority is getting food into my body. So it’s nothing specific, and I’m typically not even super hungry as soon as I finish the match. Something I’ll go to is maybe just chicken and rice, chicken and pasta, something like that. But by the time I get back to the hotel, and it’s one of those late nights after a match, that is when I’m the least picky about having to eat a certain way because I know it’s just way more important to put anything into my body in order to not feel awful the next day.

Most Popular

CultureShea Whigham Is Always Wearing a Historical HatBy Gabriella Paiella

Sales (Style)All the Sweaters Are on Sale Right NowBy Reed Nelson

GQ RecommendsThe Best Baggy Jeans Are Taking Their Victory LapBy Leon Hedgepeth

That makes me feel a lot better about picking up some fast food when I have a late-night USTA match and nothing else is open.

Obviously that's not ideal, but at the end of the day, if I just played a five-set match, that's better than eating nothing. I don’t really have to worry about the calories. If I play a five-set match, I'm easily burning 4,000 calories, so I don't think I need to worry about it.

We talked about how physical the Australian Open is, and there was a clip that went around of you cramping immediately after your match with Francis Tiafoe. We’ve seen a lot of different remedies for cramping from tennis players over the years—bananas, salt tablets, even pickle juice. In your opinion, what’s the best way to deal with cramping?

I don’t actually know because that's the first time in my life I've ever actually cramped on a tennis court. Some people are more prone to cramping than others, and I've always been someone that's like, just not prone to cramping at all. That match in particular, there were a lot of nerves going on. That's the biggest thing that's going to make you cramp, is if you're nervous. By far, more than anything else, being nervous is what makes people cramp in sports. So I guess I just need to not be nervous. [Laughs] But if it was an issue that I was dealing with all the time, I think I'd probably just throw salt in the Gatorade and just drink that. Just kind of sip on that. That'll probably do it. Once you get the cramps, there's really not much you can do. You have to just kind of prepare accordingly to make sure it doesn't happen.

Professional tennis doesn’t really have an off-season, and you’re constantly traveling. So in the rare times when you have more of a break between tournaments, do you also give yourself a little more lee-way when it comes to your diet?

Absolutely. I think it’s one of the most important things when I do have a bit of a layoff. I think it's really important for the first or second day I'm back from a tournament to be a little bit more lax, and to eat some things that I like to eat. I really do think that helps me so much more with being really good with my diet the rest of the time. Those certain cheat meals are huge for me when it comes to keeping my discipline for when it’s a lot more important that I’m sticking to my diet.

What’s the go-to spot for that sort of cheat meal?

I really like In-N-Out for a cheat meal. That’s probably my favorite spot. I really like Jersey Mike’s a lot, too.

I get Jersey Mike’s constantly. There’s one near one of my go-to tennis spots. I feel like that’s a pretty safe cheat meal, all things considered.

Most Popular

CultureShea Whigham Is Always Wearing a Historical HatBy Gabriella Paiella

Sales (Style)All the Sweaters Are on Sale Right NowBy Reed Nelson

GQ RecommendsThe Best Baggy Jeans Are Taking Their Victory LapBy Leon Hedgepeth

Yeah, I feel like it’s not too bad. Like, if I had a really tough training day, I don’t feel too bad about having it. But you know what one of my favorite cheat meals for breakfast is that I’ll have every once in a while? I really like a McDonald’s breakfast. One of those sugary iced coffees and some hash browns.

I remember back in college especially, I really loved the McGriddles. I think they’re actually way worse for you than a Big Mac.

I used to go biiiig with my cheat meals. I would eat as much as I possibly could. Now I’ve gotten to the point where it’s like, I’m going to have a cheat meal, but it’s going to be just a little bit. That way I get the satisfaction from the meal, but calorie-wise I’m not messing myself up. I’ve gotten good at not overdoing it with my cheat meals. Just give myself a little taste of it, and then it’s back to work. Like, I’m good now, and I’m going to stick a lot closer to my routine and eat all the right things leading up to a tournament. That’s been a really good balance for me. And just cleaning up my diet and being really consistent with it has been great for me. It’s definitely helped me a lot, I think.

More Great Wellness Stories From GQ

The Only 6 Exercises You Need to Get a Six-Pack

You Should Be Doing Hamstring Stretches Every Day—Here’s Why (and 7 To Try)

The Many Stealthy Ways Creatine Boosts Your Health

Flexibility Is a Key to Longevity. Here’s How to Improve Yours, According to Experts

How to Actually Build Muscle When You Work Out

Not a subscriber? Join GQ to receive full access to GQ.com.

Related Stories for GQReal Life DietTennisWorking OutFoodGQ Sports