Taylor Fritz went into his quarter-final match at Wimbledon feeling good, but then a problematic issue resurfaced at the worst possible time.
The American struggled with knee pain during his straight-sets loss to second seed Alexander Zverev, who will next take on Arthur Fery in his first semi-final at SW19. Fritz has been troubled by chronic patellar tendonitis in his right knee for months, which can cause him pain at various times. The condition occurs when the tendon is inflamed.
Fritz has spoken about his knee injury numerous times. Less than a week ago he was upbeat about its current status. It is for this reason that the sudden flare-up is even more concerning.
“Three games into the match I started feeling my knee,” Fritz explained after exiting Wimbledon.
“I still probably think I could have played a lot better through the issue.
“I would have liked to feel 100% and try to give him a match. I don’t know why I felt like that today.”
Continuing further about the issue, the world No.7 admits he went through a panic about what to do when he started to feel the pain. There were a few warning signs ahead of his showdown with Zverev on Wednesday. In his previous match against Alexander Bublik, who he beat in straight sets, he felt some discomfort towards the closing stages. Although it wasn’t significant enough to worry him at the time.
“I thought maybe not the best sign that I was feeling it (his knee) after that match, because it wasn’t super physical,” he said.
“But typically it’s how tendinitis is. He 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 really good in my warm-up actually. I have no answers as to why three games in it were like that.”
Fritz has played 14 Tour-level matches across three tournaments since June 14th. Nine of those were over an 11-day period between Stuttgart and Halle, which is when he would have expected to start feeling some sort of pain in his knee.
“It’s just an odd injury. Just because there’s pain doesn’t mean that it’s not a lot better than it was,” he continues.
“I’ll get another scan, and I’ll see where we’re at. There’s a very high chance that all the playing has flared it up. If I took a couple days off, it would probably be back to baseline.”
Over the past four years Fritz has reached the quarter-final stage or better at eight Grand Slam tournaments played. Wimbledon is his most successful major event in terms of matches won at 22 wins against 10 losses.
The result of his upcoming scan will determine his plans for the weeks ahead.
