UTS star Taylor Fritz has set his heart on making tennis a more popular sport in the United States and wants to inspire the next generation of American players.

“The Hotshot”, who reached the UTS final in Los Angeles last month, said the competition tennis faces with other sports in the US made tennis a less popular sport than abroad.

“Just by virtue of being American, it’s really easy for me to see — travelling the world — [tennis] is much more popular in other countries,” Fritz said, in an interview with HauteLiving.com

“As a player, I would love for tennis to grow in the States, and I’ve always hoped that [I] and the other American guys could be a part of making that happen.” Fritz said he and the other leading Americans would need to win the sport’s biggest titles to make a real difference.

“For that to happen, I think we need a top player, a champion. We’re very spoiled in the U.S. with sports — we’re used to having the best of everything — so unless we have someone who is contending Grand Slams, winning Opens, winning the U.S. Open, I don’t think people are really going to care that much. 

“I would love to be a part of the reason why tennis becomes more popular and why more kids pick it up. On the women’s side, Serena and Venus Williams have been carrying that for a long time, inspiring women to play tennis, and I think the next step is to have somebody on the men’s side who can inspire people to play just as much.”