Morgan Riddle once enjoyed the anonymity of Wimbledon’s Henman Hill, sipping Pimm’s and watching tennis on the big screens. Today, she can hardly walk through the All England Club without being recognized.
“I wasn’t on social media, so nobody knew who I was,” Riddle, 27, says from a quiet spot in the media center. She now spends more time in the players’ box, and on Tuesday, she watched her boyfriend, American world No. 5 Taylor Fritz, defeat Karen Khachanov to reach his first Wimbledon semifinal.
While Fritz, also 27, continues his on-court campaign, Riddle has become a tennis phenomenon in her own right. With a combined following of over one million on TikTok and Instagram, she has emerged as a key figure in the sport’s growing cultural influence. “I’m not talking about players or scores or who hits their forehand the best,” the Minneapolis native explains. Instead, her content offers a unique window into life on tour, blending tennis with fashion to create a vital gateway for new audiences.
Riddle was ahead of the curve on the “tenniscore” trend, which reached a zenith with the 2024 film Challengers. The aesthetic is now everywhere, from Kith’s collaborations with Wilson to luxury fashion endorsements for top players like Jannik Sinner (Gucci) and Zheng Qinwen (Dior). At Wimbledon, Riddle hosts “Threads,” a fashion-focused series for the All England Club’s social channels. “Tennis fashion encapsulates this certain preppy vibe,” she says. “But the way that I dress for Wimbledon is very different from the way I’ll dress for a tournament in Tokyo or Stockholm.”
Her journey to tennis fame began with a viral “get ready with me” TikTok from the 2022 Australian Open. Since then, she has documented her life on tour through the prism of fashion. In 2023, she launched a jewelry collection with Lottie NYC and appeared alongside Fritz in the Netflix documentary series Break Point. She and Fritz met on the app Raya in 2020, but for the first two years, she was focused on carving her own path. “I needed to find something that allows us to sort of live parallel alongside each other,” she says.
This unique career has not been without its challenges, including late nights and early mornings dictated by match schedules. Riddle has also contended with outdated preconceptions about being the partner of a star athlete. “Sometimes people refer to me as ‘tennis Barbie,’” she notes. “They mean to be offensive, but then we fed into it and did a whole outfit inspired by Barbie. You’re gonna call me that, so I’m gonna embrace it.”
She applies the same logic to the term “WAG” (wives and girlfriends), popularized by the British tabloid press. “When I first started dating Taylor, I accepted I would be called that term,” she says. “Instead of trying to push the term or change it, I accept and embrace it and then try to switch the connotations behind it.”
Riddle has done so by building a community that sees her as an accessible entry point into a complex sport. She regularly shares photos from fans inspired by her outfits, but her influence runs deeper. While many are fans of players like Coco Gauff and Carlos Alcaraz for their social media presence, understanding the intricacies of tennis can be intimidating. Riddle makes it less so, empowering a new generation of predominantly young female fans.
“So many of the people who come up to me at tournaments are teenage girls who tell me they have never cared about tennis until they watched my YouTube vlogs,” she says. “They say, ‘Now I’m obsessed with tennis and I watch every tournament.’ Getting to hear that gives me a lot of motivation.”
Fritz, who has climbed from the top 30 to the top five during their relationship, is fully supportive. “There’s a certain kind of guy that would not like what I’m doing or the spotlight that’s been cast on me,” Riddle admits. “But I think he likes it.”
Fritz agrees, crediting her with helping him stay grounded. “There’s been a pretty constant results and ranking rise since we’ve been together,” he said. “I think I would have to say she’s been a big help to me just kind of keeping me focused.”
To manage her demanding, public-facing life, Riddle carves out “sacred time” for herself each morning in London, taking a walk to Wimbledon Village with headphones on, away from social media. It’s a moment of peace before she and her stylist tackle their next challenge: planning the perfect outfit for Fritz’s Centre Court match. For Riddle, the decision goes beyond aesthetics.
“A lot of the girls that find me through those sorts of videos about the outfits start watching the matches,” she explains. “Then they start getting favorite players, and then they start learning about the scoring. It’s kind of a gateway into a true love of the sport.”
