Taylor Fritz welcomed by sea of BOSS headbands in Dallas

Taylor Fritz has been seeing double at the Nexo Dallas Open this week.

The top-ranked American and No. 1 seed at the ATP 500 event received an unforgettable welcome when dozens of fans on center court donned his signature black BOSS headband.

BOSS—Fritz’s apparel sponsor and an official partner of the Dallas Open—handed out the headbands during Tuesday’s first-round match against fellow American Marcos Giron.

“It’s crazy tonight! Everywhere I look everyone’s dressed like me,” Fritz said, laughing during his on-court interview. “After what happened at the Open, I’m not surprised.”

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He was speaking with Blair Henley—whose own headband was upside down, just like many in the crowd, in a cheeky reference to the viral moment that inspired the stunt. At last year’s US Open, the 28-year-old accidentally wore his BOSS headband upside down during his quarterfinal against Novak Djokovic.

“The second I saw it, I was just like…” he said, mimicking a facepalm.

The blunder quickly went viral, and after the loss Fritz logged onto X to ask, “why’d nobody tell me?”

“No one said anything to me, so that was crazy,” he recalled in Dallas. “Even when I went in to change after the second set, and I looked in the mirror myself and I didn’t notice. I just changed headbands, but I put it on right that time!”

Fritz is back in competition for the first time since reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open, where he fell to No. 5 seed Lorenzo Musetti in straight sets.

He opened with a gritty 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (1) win over Giron, firing 21 aces in a match that stretched nearly two and a half hours. He followed it up with a more straightforward 6-3, 6-4 victory over Brandon Nakashima.

There was a brief scare in the opener, however. Fritz experienced “sharp pain” after a “strange twist” in his right knee during the first set against Giron and called for the physio—adding to concerns as he continues to manage lingering tendinitis.

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“It had nothing to do with the tendinitis, the knee issue that I’ve been dealing with for a while now,” he explained afterward on Tennis Channel.

“It was weird… It was (during) the first point of his service game in that changeover. I felt like I tweaked my knee. I was getting a sharp pain.

“It got a little better the next game that I served and I just called Clay over to make sure it was good. And after he worked on it, honestly, no problems. It was just a weird little tweak.”

Fritz moves into the quarterfinals in Dallas, where he awaits the winner of No. 8 seed Frances Tiafoe and Sebastian Korda.