Taylor Fritz calls girlfriend a "tennis influencer" after her TikTok video gets 3.1 million views
Taylor Fritz celebrated Valentine's Day with his girlfriend Morgan Riddle and took to Instagram to share a photo of the pair together. In the caption for the post, the American called Riddle his "favorite tennis influencer," leading many fans to wonder what he meant.
"Happy Valentine’s Day to my favorite tennis influencer, Morgan Riddle. Love you lots," Taylor Fritz wrote.
Riddle, a social media influencer, has over 30,000 followers on Instagram, but she is a much bigger deal on TikTok. On the video-sharing social networking site, the American has more than 200,000 followers.
Last week, Riddle uploaded a video to the platform, where she revealed that she "was on a personal mission to make tennis cool again." She claimed she made the post because she wanted to explain a few things about tennis to non-fans before a Netflix documentary about the sport comes out next year.
More power to her, tbh.
(Who’s making the Make Tennis Cool Again hats is all I want to know.) https://t.co/BZkHt2U9S1
It should be noted that Taylor Fritz is one of the players who is being followed around by a filming crew as part of the Netflix series. Riddle was of the opinion that tennis was relatively "uncool" and "unknown" in the US, a perception she wanted to change with her video.
"I travel the world on the ATP Tour with my boyfriend who is the No. 1 ranked American tennis player. Right now, the crew from Netflix who made the F1 Drive To Survive is on tour with us, filming the tennis version," Riddle said. "It comes out next year, but tennis is relatively uncool and unknown in America so here is what you should know about the sport before [the series] comes out."
Morgan Riddle went on to briefly explain the basics of the sport. She pointed out that players compete at various tournaments in important cities across "31 countries" and emphasized that the four Grand Slams were the most important and prestigious among them all.
"Tennis is a year-round sport except for four weeks off in December. Players compete in tournaments in 31 countries and cities like Dubai, Paris, Shanghai, London, Rome, Cabos and many more," Riddle said. "The big tournaments of the year are the four Grand Slams, the Aussie summer swing ending with the Australian Open in Melbourne, Roland Garros in my favorite city Paris, the very bougie and historical Wimbledon, and the US Open in New York City."
Riddle also expounded on how the rankings system works. She made a special note of how the points are refreshed at the end of every year, drawing attention to the competitive aspect of the game.
"So, what are they playing for besides glory and hundreds of millions of dollars in prize money? Players are competing for points. Each tournament offers a certain number of points and the better you do, the more points you get," Riddle said. "The more points you have, the higher your ranking is. And the ranking refreshes every year. No pressure."
Finally, she shed light on the glamorous and fashionable side of tennis, saying that fans can expect to be treated to posh food and beverages, like champagne and strawberries, at tennis tournaments instead of the commonplace offerings at other sporting events.
Riddle ended the clip by saying that her followers should take the video as a "sign to go to a tennis tournament this year" and enjoy the experience themselves.
"Tennis tournaments are not your casual sporting event with hotdogs and beer. You can expect champagne, strawberries and cream, nobu and getting to wear really cute outfits," Riddle said. "So if you are looking for a sign to go to a tennis tournament this year, this is it."
The video garnered more than 2.7 million views in its first two days, and currently has over 3.1 million views and almost 700,000 likes on TikTok.
This video currently has 2.7 million views on TikTok in two days. ATP Tour is pretty darn lucky to have her in the mix rn. twitter.com/BlairHenley/st…
Taylor Fritz has reached a career-high ranking of World No. 17
Meanwhile, Taylor Fritz has had a wonderful start to the 2022 season and has reached a career-high ranking of World No. 17 on the ATP tour. Following his quarter-final run at the Dallas Open, the American gained two places in his ranking from last week.
The 24-year-old has six wins to his name since the turn of the year. Taylor Fritz defeated Cameron Norrie and Felix Auger-Aliassime during his stint at the ATP Cup, and then followed it up with a run to the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. Though Taylor Fritz is yet to beat a top-10 player this year (Auger-Aliassime was ranked World No. 11 when they faced each other), the American No. 1 has already beaten three higher-ranked opponents.
Two American men back in the top 20 and No. 17 Taylor Fritz and No. 20 Reilly Opelka should both move up some more this week https://t.co/tMLeMtSPNm