When Morgan Riddle came across the American tennis player Taylor Fritz on Raya in the early days of lockdown, it wasn’t his athletic prowess that caught her eye. “He had a photo of him playing tennis and I was like, oh, cute,” Riddle recalls drolly over Caesar salad and oysters at Benjamin Grill inside Arthur Ashe Stadium. Instead, a photo of Fritz cradling a koala piqued her interest. While she admits that her knowledge of tennis was “nonexistent” when she and Fritz coupled up, five years later, Riddle has become a fixture in her own right in the tennis world and beyond.
Riddle and I meet during the 2025 US Open, just ahead of Fritz’s third-round match against Swiss player Jérôme Kym. (Playing on the Louis Armstrong court before him is Aryna Sabalenka, the world number one. “She might wreck this girl in like an hour,” Riddle says, eyeing the time.) She came dressed for the occasion in a sporty gray Miu Miu windbreaker dress over a pale pink button-up with matching pointy-toe stilettos. “I do not wear a flat shoe ever,” she says. (Her hard and fast rule? Orthopedic inserts.) She balances the athletic minidress with a vintage black Miu Miu bag from What Goes Around Comes Around in London, and finishes off her outfit with a healthy dose of diamonds, including a dainty anklet.
Though Riddle admits it took her six months of WAGdom to fully grasp the rules of tennis, she is locked in come game time. She sits dead center in the front row alongside Fritz’s coach and his wife, his trainer, and his mother, Kathy May. All five clutch their fists every time he earns a point, jumping to their feet when he wins a set.
As the longtime partner of the highest-ranked American tennis player in the world, Riddle is something of the first lady of American tennis. As her profile grows through her fashion and lifestyle content on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, she brings a whole new wave of fans into the fold. But Riddle isn’t interested in being a typical influencer.
Riddle was born in Minnesota, where “the biggest celebrities were hockey players.” After graduating from Wagner College in New York, she moved home, sharing a roof with her parents, three younger siblings, three cats, and two dogs. She got a job working in influencer marketing and social media at Love Your Melon, a beanie brand that delivered hats to children with cancer. Shortly after the start of the pandemic, she packed up her Jeep and drove across the country to Los Angeles.
Riddle and Fritz moved in together after three-and-a-half weeks of dating. “Everyone in my life was like, ‘Are you absolutely nuts?’” she recalls. “Looking back on it, I’m like, yeah, why the fuck did I do that?” The pandemic allowed them to nurture their budding relationship in a way that is not typically afforded to a professional tennis player. (Among their favorite activities? Watching anime. Riddle cites Attack on Titan as one of their go-tos.) “In any normal circumstance, maybe he was home for a week and we would’ve had a couple dates, and then he would’ve been like, ‘Alright, I’m going to Europe for six weeks,’” she says.
Riddle’s early days as a tennis WAG were relatively isolated thanks to the bubble tournaments that limited the number of fans in the crowd. Still, that didn’t stop fans from wondering: Who is the beautiful blonde woman sitting in Taylor Fritz’s box? “I was very private for the first two years of our relationship,” she says. Work played a large role in her decision. “I was working in nonprofits for children in hospitals.”
Eventually, well aware that people were curious about her, she began documenting her life on the tour with Fritz. “I have friends who have been on YouTube since they were 15 years old. It was kind of nice to have an introduction to it once I was mature and felt like I had a better head on my shoulders,” she says. She chronicles days spent in various far-flung locales and the outfits she wears to games, which have become increasingly high-fashion as her profile grows. Now she sits for Miu Miu shows and taps Thom Browne for game day outfits. But she wasn’t always as knowledgeable about fashion. She credits Fritz—who, himself, is sponsored by Hugo Boss—for getting her into fashion. “When I met him, I literally did not know one designer. He was like, ‘We’ve got to get you drip,’” she says, laughing.
But her content reaches far beyond lifestyle and fashion. Ahead of the 2024 election, Riddle posted a photo in the viral camo Harris-Walz cap, encouraging people to vote. She has also repeatedly criticized fellow influencers who stay silent on political issues. “I don’t know if it was ever really a decision. I came from a very liberal family. My sister is LGBTQ. My little brother relies on Medicaid—he has autism. My mom works in public media. People in my life are affected by [conservative policies],” Riddle says of her choice to speak out. “I’ve always been very outspoken on my social media. I think it’s just now that I have a bigger platform. People are like, ‘Why are you getting political now?’ I’ve always been like this.”
Riddle is acutely aware of criticism. “Of course I get DMs from really angry Republican women who like tennis, but it’s not a loss in my mind,” she says. “I wouldn’t be friends with them in real life. I don’t really care if they’re following what I do online.”
People who disagree with her politics aren’t the only people who attack her online. Amidst the ongoing love affair between fashion and sports, WAGs are more visible than ever. Once a stigmatized term, “WAG” is no longer a derisive synonym for “groupie.” But that doesn’t stop the hate. “There’s still a lot of negativity around it, and I know that because I see misogynist comments—always from idiot men,” she says. “I do think there’s more visibility on what girls are doing outside of just attending their partners’ matches.”
Still, haters aside, being a WAG is more aspirational than ever. Are there any words of wisdom Riddle would like to impart? “I’d say a lot of it’s just common sense,” she deadpans. On a more serious note, she urges players’ new partners to enjoy the opportunity to travel the world. “Let them go to their practice and see the world and take advantage of this incredible life experience.”
At Louis Armstrong Stadium, it immediately becomes clear that Riddle is just as much a fixture at these matches as the players. Little girls shuffle up to her seat in the front row of Fritz’s box to ask for a photo, which she obliges with a sweet, toothy smile (though not while the game is in session); tennis fans tag her in their courtside photos, crediting her as an outfit inspiration as well as a gateway to an interest in tennis. For Riddle, getting girls and women involved in tennis is the highest compliment. “I have so many girls come up to me at tournaments all over the world and tell me that they knew nothing about tennis before,” she says. “Now they have favorite players, they’re going to tournaments, and now it s staying up to 4 A.M. watching matches on the other side of the world,” she says. “It was unexpected for me, but that was my mission from the start.”
Just don’t expect to see her on the court. Early in their relationship, Fritz gave her what would—to someone else—be a highly coveted one-on-one tennis lesson. “It was like my third time picking up a racket and he was trying to teach me topspin,” she recalls. “I can’t even get the ball over the net!”
