WIMBLEDON, England — Taylor Fritz was three games into the Wimbledon quarterfinals against Alexander Zverev when tendinitis in his knee began to flare up, and the American immediately knew he was in trouble.
“I was just panicking, ‘What should I do?’” said Fritz, the sixth seed. “I just didn’t expect it at all.”
In the end, there was nothing he could do.
Zverev’s serve and Fritz’s sore knee were impossible to overcome as the last American remaining in the singles tournament lost 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 on Court No. 1 on Wednesday.
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Fritz, who reached the 2024 US Open final after beating Zverev in the quarterfinals, has dealt with knee tendonitis in the past. But earlier at Wimbledon he showed no signs that the disease might flare up again, other than a little pain at the end of his fourth-round win over Alexander Bublik.
“I expected that after yesterday’s easy day I would feel good today,” he said. “I felt like my warm-up was great. Then yes, I don’t have an answer to the question why three games in it were like that.”
In the second set, Fritz took a medical timeout to treat his right knee, but it was not enough to stop Zverev ending his seven-game losing streak against the American.
“He beat me two years in a row,” said Zverev, the French Open champion. “I played a fantastic match.”
Fritz immediately noted that the result could have been the same regardless of the knee problem.
“He’s going to be very difficult to beat the way he serves,” said Fritz, who faced four break points in the match but failed to convert any of them. “I don’t want to take away from how well he plays… I’m just really sad that I didn’t have a chance to, like, get into the swing of things, I guess. I felt like just because I was thinking about the knee, my attention was kind of all over the place.”