“Being here is isolating because to everyone in Australia it’s just news … we’re trying to enjoy the Australian Open and get game-ready, but every hour I’m checking my phone,” she said.
“I’m so sad for the people that have been affected. It’s our friends and families. Taylor’s childhood home burnt down a couple of days ago … I’m just devastated.
The devastating LA fires.Credit: Maxar
“But there are bad things happening in the world all the time, so it’s trying to find that balance,” Riddle says. “The tennis can distract [Fritz] … and we’re going to do what we can.”
Even when facing adversity, tennis remains a constant for the pair. Riddle has become a self-proclaimed expert – with access and insight into the game that many sports pundits can only dream of.
“It’s mostly because Taylor loves to talk about the sport. Some players I think don’t have the tennis IQ that he has, and he really likes to dissect everything,” she said.
“I have to know what he’s talking about, you know? So we can have the banter about it. So I’ve gotten pretty knowledgeable.”
Taylor Fritz made the 2024 US Open final.Credit: Getty Images
But there’s more to Riddle than her persona in the tennis world. She performed musical theatre during high school before getting a degree in English literature at college. She’s unapologetically herself – a lover of nice clothes, travelling, and making videos.
“I’ve always been the type that would wear heels to high school, and I love dressing up,” she says. “So when I started going to [tennis] matches, I would just show up as me. I’d wear heels and I’d wear dresses.
“I was always super confident about it and embraced it, regardless of what people said online. And I think that made it a little more comfortable for girls to show up as themselves.”
She wants to share this sense of confidence with others as well, in any way she can.
As someone known for her fashion, Riddle says she is often asked by young girls what they should wear, especially to matches. And her reply is simple: whatever you want to.
“If you want to wear a T-shirt and tennis shoes because that’s what you feel the best in, wear that,” she says. “That’s the best way that you can experience an event, is showing up as your authentic self. No matter what you’re wearing or what you’re doing or what gender you are.”
She says she tries to extend this sense of authenticity to her online content. She is popular on various social media sites, with more than 400,000 followers on Instagram and more than half a million on TikTok.
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She tires to be authentic online, arguably too authentic sometimes.
At Wimbledon last year, she deleted an Instagram story which referred to Fritz’s win against Alexander Zverev as “for the girls,” in the midst of his now-aborted trial over allegations of domestic abuse.
Riddle didn’t want to comment on that specific video. But she summarised her approach to online content:“I post what I want to post. And if I’m not for some people, that’s fine, you don’t have to watch my stuff. You don’t have to participate in my life at all, and I just trust that I will attract the right people,” she says.
“I show up as myself. I talk about what I want to talk about … and if I’m not for some people, that’s fine.”
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