LONDON: Taylor Fritz was three games into his Wimbledon quarterfinal against Alexander Zverev when his knee tendinitis started flaring up, and the American knew right away he was in trouble.
“I was just like panicking, ‘What am I going to do?’” the sixth-seeded Fritz said. “I just didn’t expect it at all.”
In the end, there was nothing he could do.
Zverev’s serve and the pain in Fritz’s knee were too much to overcome as the last American man left in the singles tournament lost 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 on No. 1 Court on Wednesday.
Fritz, who reached the 2024 US Open final after beating Zverev in the quarterfinals, has struggled with knee tendinitis in the past. But he had no indication previously at Wimbledon that it might flare up again, aside from a bit of pain toward the end of his fourth-round win over Alexander Bublik.
“I expected, after a light day yesterday, to feel fine today,” he said. “Felt like my warm-up was great. Then, yeah, I have no answers as to why three games in it was like that.”
Fritz took a medical timeout during the second set to have his right knee worked on by a physio, but it wasn’t enough to prevent Zverev from ending a seven-match losing streak against the American.
“He’s beaten me for two years straight,” Zverev, the French Open champion, said. “I played a fantastic match.”
Fritz, also, was quick to point out that the result may have been the same regardless of his knee issue.
“He’s going to be extremely tough to beat the way he’s serving,” said Fritz, who earned four break points in the match but couldn’t convert any of them. “I don’t want to take away from how well he’s playing. … I’m just really sad that I didn’t get the chance to, like, get into it, I guess. I felt like just because I was thinking about the knee, my focus was kind of all over the place.”