By Shrivathsa Sridhar
LONDON, July 8 (Reuters) - Taylor Fritz said he was blindsided and briefly in a state of panic when a chronic right knee problem flared up early in his straight-sets Wimbledon quarter-final defeat by second seed Alexander Zverev on Wednesday.
Fritz arrived for the Court One encounter having beaten his German opponent in their previous seven clashes but was hampered by tendonitis and needed treatment at the start of the second set before going down 6-4 6-4 6-2.
"I feel like three
games in the match, he was already up a break, but ... I started feeling my knee. I think I could have, still probably think I could have played a lot better through the issue," Fritz told reporters.
"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 aggressive with his forehand and his backhand as well. He hit the ball great. He played really well.
"It wasn't the match that I was expecting. I would have liked to feel 100% and try to give him a match ... I don't know why I felt like that today."
The injury was a jolt for Fritz, who opted to rest for much of the clay season and arrived at the All England Club with his confidence in his body renewed after reaching the finals of Stuttgart and Halle.
FRITZ'S HOPES FADED FAST
The American's run in Halle included a semi-final win over Zverev, but any hopes of extending his dominance over the German faded fast after the opening few games.
"I was just panicking, 'what am I going to do?' I didn't expect it at all. The only signs I had were I had pain towards the end of my match with Alexander Bublik," Fritz added.
"I thought it's maybe not the best sign that I was feeling it after that match, because it wasn't super physical. Typically it's how tendonitis 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 warm-up actually. Then, I have no answers as to why three games in it was like that."
Zverev now faces Arthur Fery in the semi-finals and Fritz believes the plucky British wildcard will have his work cut out despite playing in front of a partisan Centre Court crowd.
"I do think Zverev is going to be incredibly tough to beat just with how well he's serving," Fritz added.
"That's not something that I feel really changes from day to day with him. I feel like you can expect that he's going to show up and serve at least 70% first serves, bombs. He's playing with a lot of confidence.
"We'll see if the crowd, playing someone that he's a big favourite over ... we'll see if that can cause any kind of an issue. Yeah, he's playing with a lot of confidence and he's playing really well. It's going to be an interesting one."
(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in London; Editing by Alison Williams)
