ATP Tour

Fritz reflects on injury-hit Wimbledon exit: 'My focus was all over the place'

Taylor Fritz admitted he was left searching for answers after pain in his knee flared up just three games into his quarter-final clash against Alexander Zverev at Wimbledon on Wednesday.

The No. 7 player in the PIF ATP Rankings, Fritz has managed knee tendinitis throughout the season but still pieced together an impressive grass-court swing. Yet after discomfort returned early against Zverev, the American required a medical timeout in the second set and was never able to move or strike the ball with his usual freedom.

“I don't really know what to say,” Fritz said in his post-match press conference. “He was already up a break, but three games into the match, [I] started feeling my knee. I think I could have still probably played a lot better through the issue.

“I don't know what kind of difference it would have made in the match. He's going to be extremely tough to beat the way he's serving. He was very aggressive with his forehand and his backhand as well. Very aggressive. Hit the ball great. He played really well.”

While he was quick to credit Zverev for producing a composed display to reach his first Wimbledon semi-final, Fritz revealed his frustration stemmed from how suddenly the injury resurfaced. The 28-year-old said he first noticed discomfort towards the end of his fourth-round victory over Alexander Bublik on Monday, but believed the issue had settled before taking to No. 1 Court.

“I was just panicking, ‘What am I going to do?’ I just didn't expect it at all,” Fritz said. “The only signs I had were I had some pain towards the very end of my match with Bublik. I was already up two sets and a break. I thought maybe it was not the best sign that I was feeling it after that match, because it wasn't super physical.

“But typically it's how tendinitis is. It gets irritated sometimes. You give it a little bit of a rest, and then it feels better. I expected, after a light day yesterday, to feel fine today. I felt fine, felt really good in my warmup actually. I felt like my warmup was great. Then, yeah, I have no answers as to why three games in it was like that.”

Fritz entered the match having won seven consecutive meetings against Zverev and leading their Lexus ATP Head2Head series 10-5, but he was unable to apply his usual pressure. The American won just 35 per cent of points behind his second serve and struggled to cope with the German's own relentless serving and ball-striking from the baseline.

Last year, Fritz reached the Wimbledon semi-finals before falling to Carlos Alcaraz. This year he exits SW19 having slipped three places to No. 10 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings.

“It's just sad,” Fritz continued. “I don't want to take away from how well he's playing. I'm not saying the result would have been any different… It would have been an incredibly tough match. I'm just really sad that I didn't get the chance to get into it, I guess.

“I felt like just because I was thinking about the knee, my focus was all over the place.”

Fritz has been dealing with the tendinitis since late last season, while he also missed two months of action following the ATP Masters 1000 event in Miami this year.

“Rest isn't the way to fix knee tendinitis,” Fritz explained. “It's not loading it to a certain extent, which obviously is going to be time away from playing really physical tennis matches. That helps.

“It's not like when I'm home and not playing tournaments, I'm resting. It's a lot of strengthening, and you want to push it. There's a certain amount of pain that's acceptable when you're trying to strengthen and regrow the tendon. That's what I've done.”

Fritz said scans throughout his rehabilitation have shown consistent progress, making the timing of the setback all the more difficult to process after getting through a demanding stretch of matches on grass. The American reached consecutive finals in Stuttgart and Halle before Wimbledon.

“That's what all my scans since November have shown, is that I am regrowing and strengthening the tendon," Fritz said. "In November there was just a hole there, so…

“I'm surprised about today, because I thought if I was going to show signs of it flaring up on me, I felt like it would have already happened. I played nine matches in 11 days between Stuttgart and Halle. I think five or six of those were three-set matches. I felt like if it was going to happen, it would have already happened. That's why I'm just really disappointed, sad today.”

Fritz, who owns a 23-12 record in 2026 according to the Infosys ATP Win/Loss Index, is next scheduled to compete at the ATP 500 event in Washington, which begins 27 July.