Style|The Most Famous Woman in Men’s Tennis
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The fashion influencer Morgan Riddle has become a niche celebrity at professional tennis matches, where she cheers for her boyfriend, the American player Taylor Fritz, as some fans cheer for her.
Morgan Riddle and Taylor Fritz at Equinox Hotel New York this month.Credit...Krista Schlueter for The New York Times
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Jessica Testa is a fashion reporter who feels torn every September between the U.S. Open and New York Fashion Week.
Morgan Riddle was being watched.
Outside the grandstand, while she idled beneath the summer sun, a passer-by stopped, turned and pointed a phone at her, then wordlessly walked away. Ms. Riddle just adjusted her black oval Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy-style sunglasses.
Once inside the tennis match, while she and more than 1,000 other spectators found their seats, people were more direct. “Are you Morgan?” “I recognize you!” “Can we get a photo?” She said yes at least a dozen times that afternoon.
“You’re so tiny!” said Sue McDonald, who had come to the National Bank Open in Toronto with her 19-year-old daughter, Jaiden. She had never been able to get her children interested in the sport, Ms. McDonald told Ms. Riddle, until last summer, when one player on TV caught her daughter’s eye.
“I’m sitting there watching Wimbledon, and I’m like, ‘Come and see this guy,’” she said. “‘Come and see this tall, dark, handsome guy.’ She comes walking in, and she’s like, ‘Oh, who’s this?’”
It was Taylor Fritz, a player from Southern California recognizable for his height (a lean 6-foot-5) and his center-parted, cartoon-prince waves, which he restrains during matches with a Nike headband. Mr. Fritz, 25, is the top American player in men’s tennis, currently ranked ninth in the world.
But he wasn’t the only person the McDonalds were watching during that match.
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