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Tennis has created some of our modern day’s biggest and most controversial stars, from Serena Williams to Roger Federer to Novak Djokovic. Now there’s a bright new light on the courts: Morgan Riddle.
Never heard of her? Then maybe you’re not on TikTok, where the 25-year-old fashion influencer has more than 274,000 followers.
To be fair, Riddle’s fame is adjacent to that of her boyfriend, Taylor Fritz, the No. 1-ranked male tennis player in America and 12th in the world, 24-year-old Fritz defeated 22-time Grand Slam singles winner Rafael Nadal at the Indian Wells Masters, but Riddle was earning attention too.
As Fritz kept going and going through the tourney, Riddle was caught unprepared: “I didn’t pack enough outfits someone call 911,” she jokingly tweeted.
Riddle has been making headlines for a while now, but her attention went through the roof at Wimbledon when she became a favorite of TV cameras. In fact, one tennis fan tweeted, “They showed David Beckham 4 times and [Riddle] 87 times.” Since then, she has become famous for her tournament style, gotten attention for her bikini pics and showed off her fabulous life as she travels around the world with Fritz on tour.
Now she’s getting camera ready for the US Open, which begins Monday at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, Queens.
Born and raised in Minneapolis, where “it was all about hockey,” Riddle admitted she didn’t realize that tennis was “such a big professional sport” until she started dating Fritz in 2020. “I definitely didn’t know who Taylor was,” she said.
But when she saw him on the referral-only dating app Raya, Riddle swiped right without much thought. “My song was ‘Sunflower’ by Harry Styles and his was ‘Sunflower’ by Post Malone and Swae Lee,” she said.
Their first date was limited by early 2020’s pandemic lockdown and turned into a sushi takeout night at Fritz’s Los Angeles home.
At that point, she had never even played tennis. Now, she said, “We will hit around every now and then, but I don’t think I’m much fun to play with because I’m not very good.