Fritz and Paul make it a bronze-silver double for USA
Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul won bronze on Saturday, beating the Czech duo of Tomas Machac and Adam Pavlasek to secure a place on the men's doubles podium at Paris 2024 alongside fellow Americans and silver medallists Austin Krajicek and Rajeev Ram.
It was a special moment for world No. 12 Fritz, playing in his first Olympic Games, and world No. 13 Paul, who played at Tokyo 2020 without winning a match. The pair who are Davis Cup teammates, and were friends as well rivals as juniors, now share a bronze medal.
Speaking later with their medals hanging around their necks, they reflected on their achievement together.
“It’s cool… both of us are singles players, but as far as doing it in doubles (goes), I don’t think I’d want to share this moment with anybody else,” said Fritz.
Paul agreed: “As a whole, the whole time we’ve been here, it’s been so cool, and to leave here and share a medal with Taylor, it’s a dream for us.”
The American duo outplayed their Czech opponents to win 63 64 in one hour, 10 minutes. Fritz served well throughout, ably supported by some excellent play at the net from Paul.
For the Czechs, Machac was the weak link, perhaps emotionally and physically spent from winning his mixed doubles gold medal alongside Katerina Siniakova on Court Philippe Chatrier 15 hours previously.
“Yeah, was like a rollercoaster, but it’s part of the game," said Machac on his change in fortunes. "I’m pretty happy I managed to win yesterday the match but unfortunately today I feel disappointment. But I tried my best and unfortunately it wasn’t going as we planned it, but it is what it is.”
In the opening set Fritz and Paul raced to a 5-1 lead, breaking Pavlasek then Machac’s serve, but were pegged back briefly to 5-3 when Paul was broken, before Fritz served out the advantage.
One further break of Machac’s serve in the first game of the second set was enough to hand the win to the Americans, with the Czech pair unable to create more opportunities.
It fell to Fritz again to serve out the set and the match, and after a wobble in which he let slip four match points, and Pavlasek and Machac had a set point, the Californian regained his composure and clinched the win for his country with an unreturnable serve on their fifth match point.
“Obviously a little bit of nerves coming out to serve out the match,” said Fritz. “He (Paul) told me to go for the big serve and end it, and I kind of relaxed on that last one.”
The American pair celebrated with their now signature ‘shovel’ move, signifying that they had dug out another – and this time medal-winning – victory after their disappointment at losing to Matthew Ebden and John Peers in Friday’s semifinals.
Fritz and Paul said the idea formed with Team USA in the Olympic Village and they used the celebration first in their opening match together. “All week, was like, ‘we’re digging, we’re digging, I gotta get through it,” said Paul. “It kind of just became like, okay, we have to do this celebration after every match.”
By achieving a bronze-silver double in men’s doubles at Paris 2024, Team USA have won two Olympic men's doubles medals in the same Games for only the second time, and the first time for 120 years, since Americans swept all the tennis medals available at St Louis in 1904.
USA also clinched their fifth and sixth men’s doubles medals since Olympic tennis returned at Seoul 1988. Bob and Mike Bryan, who are on that honour roll as Beijing 2008 bronze medallists and London 2012 gold medallists, have played a pivotal role here in Paris in preparing not just Fritz and Paul, but also Krajieck and Ram, for their matches.
“Having the Bryan brothers here has been amazing,” Fritz said. “They’re awesome, and especially for us playing doubles here as well and getting in this position. It’s helped so much having literally the best doubles team of all time in our corner.”
Paul agreed, and added: “We were definitely very bummed after the loss yesterday, but I think Taylor and the whole team did a really good job of remotivating (us) to go out there again today and turn (it) around.”