​LONDON (AP) — Taylor Fritz’s Wimbledon quarterfinal against Alexander Zverev took a harsh turn three games into the contest when his right knee began flaring with tendonitis, signaling immediate trouble for the American. “I was just panicking, ‘What am I going to do?’” Fritz admitted. “I didn’t expect it at all.” In the end, there was little he could do to stem the tide.
Zverev’s dominant serve coupled with Fritz’s knee pain proved too much, and the last American man remaining in the singles draw fell in straight sets, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2, on No. 1 Court on Wednesday. Fritz, who had reached the 2024 U.S. Open final after defeating Zverev in their quarterfinal, has had a history of knee tendonitis, though Wimbledon had offered no clear warning signs that it might flare again—besides a hint of discomfort late in his fourth-round victory over Alexander Bublik.
“I expected, after a light day yesterday, to feel fine today,” Fritz said. “My warm-up felt great. Then, yeah, I have no answers as to why three games in it was like that.”
During the second set, Fritz called for a medical timeout and had his right knee treated by a physiotherapist, but the treatment didn’t suffice to halt Zverev’s momentum and end a seven-match losing streak he had against the American. “He’s beaten me for two years straight,” Zverev, who is the French Open champion, remarked after the match, “I played a fantastic match.”
Fritz did not deny that his knee itself may have influenced the outcome. “He’s going to be extremely tough to beat the way he’s serving,” Fritz observed, noting that he earned four break-point chances but failed to convert any. “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 because I was thinking about the knee, my focus was kind of all over the place.”
As the match concluded, the knee issue stood as a clear factor in Fritz’s exit, reinforcing a narrative of a talented American grappling with chronic knee trouble while Zverev advanced with a performance that underscored why he remains a formidable opponent on the sport’s biggest stages.