Servebot Fritz Triumphs in DC, Eala's Magic Run & Canada Open Preview | EP 201

**Sam** (0:00)
All right, everyone, on today's episode of Nothing Major, we're going to break down the results from Cabo, DC. We've got US. Open mixed doubles to chat about and a few other things, so let's get going.

**Sam** (0:12)
Jack, John, Stevie and Sam got close a few times, never won a slam, Nothing Major.

**Sam** (0:17)
Welcome back. We got the usual trio back, Steve Johnson, John Isner, myself.
We are in the suits, of course, I forgot about the suits. Suits are with us at SIFT as well.
Three of us are back from Cabo. We were boots on the ground in Cabo the last three days. It was a fun little trip for the Nothing Major guys. Stevie is coming to us live from Montreal. He's there this week. We'll all be in Cincy. John will be in Winston-Salem. We'll all be at the Open. Basically, we got boots on the ground at every tournament moving forward. We're going to have some good information, some good facts coming your way.
Let's start with DC. We finally got some good tennis on our hands. We talked about it the last few weeks after Wimbledon. It's that tough three-week stretch in the calendar where it's not that exciting, but we are back. We are back with some big tournaments. Start with DC.
Stevie, I'm going to go to you. We're halted in the final right now. Fritz and Hodar, both making runs to the final. It rained in DC yesterday, so we will hopefully have those finals results today. It could rain again. We don't know. How's Stevie Fritz? He's taken out Zizou Bergs, Mazurjak. He took out Michelsen in an incredible match in the semifinals where he saved match points. Fritz looks like he's back in good form, and do you think he is back to the form maybe that he's been playing his best tennis at in the past?

**Steve Johnson** (1:50)
Yeah, look, I mean, for Fritz, the only thing that really matters for him is health. And right now, he looks to be healthy. He got an injury timeout. I believe in them. I forget which match it was. But that was on the opposite knee of the one that he's had some issues with. So the one thing about Fritz is the tennis will always be there. He's a confident individual. He's incredible on the court. But can he hold up on a hard court?
Can the body hold up the way it has been for the bulk of his career? Because he's playing great tennis, but this is a good week for him. US Summer kicks it off into a final here. Had some good wins along the way. So it looks like it's going to be just status quo for Fritz. Going to have a big summer and continue to just inch closer to another year as the top American, in my opinion.

**Sam** (2:39)
John, the outside of Fritz, some of the top Americans disappointed a little bit. Shelton with a tough loss to Tobio. Tommy Paul losing early. Francis Tiafoe lost first round there. Francis was amazing on the show last week, by the way. I know everyone listened to it last Thursday, like one of the best interviews ever.
Do you think the other Americans, where do you think, I mean, Lerner Tien went out first round in Manarino. A little bit of a slow start for some of the other top Americans though, would you say?

**John Isner** (3:09)
Yeah, it was a terrible tournament for the other Americans, like awful. I mean, Tommy was a little bit, maybe has a little bit of that wedding hangover. He brought him to DC, not actually, I'm not saying he was actually hungover, but you know what I'm saying, like the come down from the wedding, it was tough to get back into tennis for him. I'm not worried about any of these guys. Lerner Tien's loss was peculiar, losing to the corpse of Adrian Manarino still out there.
Just grinding, so it's still doing so well. But Francis is super disappointing for him as well. Obviously going out early in DC, that's the term that he wants to win desperately. But I'm not worried about these guys. Nakashima had a great event making it to the semifinals. Fritzie, of course, is Fritzie, but there's so many Americans, right? I mean, you're like, at this, we've talked about this so much. Like it seems like at any tournament, maybe outside of the really, really big ones, we're at least guaranteed two Americans in the semifinals. It's what we got in DC, but the other players, certainly a bit disappointing.

**Sam** (4:21)
Yeah, I feel like two of the Americans that we don't talk about a ton, Nakashima and Michelsen, just because there's so many other good Americans, had great weeks, especially Nakashima. He took out Jakub Menchik and Demon Hour. And if you know Nakashima like we do, that's not that surprising. Nakashima is so good. He just hasn't had that massive result of like winning a 500 or like a big deep run in a master series or a major.