Taylor Fritz’s run at the Australian Open has come to an end, halted in crushing fashion by Lorenzo Musetti.
The one-sided nature of the scoreline may shock many, but considering the fitness ailments that the American had been battling throughout the tournament, it felt like a result like this was inevitable.
All credit to the Italian, who took his opportunity with both hands, and will now move into the fourth round of the tournament for the first time in his career.
Meanwhile, it’s back to the drawing board for Taylor Fritz, who will likely spend his next few days tied to the treatment table as he seeks to discover the extent of what this week of action has done to his body.
Taylor Fritz provides crucial update on his fitness
Speaking at his Australian Open press conference after the match, it did not take long for reporters to coax some additional information about his fitness.
However, with such an important and enjoyable run of tournaments coming up, Fritz’s worrying update has put his participation in jeopardy.
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He admitted, when asked how he was feeling: “Yeah, not good. I’ve been pretty, like, I guess, transparent about the knee stuff, like, the entire week. I was so happy with how I was feeling throughout, like, the first two rounds, and then I came in after the match with Stan and I was, like, yeah, it wasn’t feeling great against Stan, especially towards the end of the match.”
Fritz explained that the knee had been holding up well before the match, but as the start neared, it began to deteriorate.
He hoped that it would loosen up, but was afforded no such reprieve, instead stating: “It was just, like, pretty much everything was bothering it.”
This was not his only injury though, adding: “It was my oblique. That was all the tape. We tried taping it today because I felt like in the first round it wasn’t that big of an issue. In the second round, maybe a little bit more.
“Then, in the match with Stan, my oblique was actually killing me when I was trying to return. He’d like kick his second serve to my backhand. I was just, like, I could not hit it without… Like, I could only push it if I tried to, like, turn on it. It was killing me.”
Heavy strapping could not contain the pain, and although scans confirmed no obvious tear, he admitted: “It’s exactly the same as last year, and I kind of made a mess of this thing last year trying to play through it a bit too much. So we’re monitoring it.”
With Dallas, Indian Wells and Miami just around the corner, he concluded by explaining his thought process regarding any potential withdrawals: “I think I can recover from it fairly, fairly quickly if I just take some time off.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how good it really is, but I’m going to see how that reacts. I’m hoping I can play Dallas.
“I’m not going to have to play more than three sets in any match in Dallas, so kind of just figure it out. If my knee feels like it’s not getting better, if my oblique feels like it’s not getting better, I’ll give myself the time.”
Fritz had kind words for Stan Wawrinka after their most recent match, having beaten the Swiss legend before his loss to Musetti today.
Taylor Fritz and Lorenzo Musetti’s battle for the honour of facing Novak Djokovic
It is always strange when two players face one another when their opponent in the next round has already been confirmed, especially when that player is Novak Djokovic.
After all, it feels like they are clashing for the honour of facing that superstar, and given their respective head-to-head records against the superstar Serbian, likely the honour of losing.
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Fritz has never beaten Djokovic in 11 attempts, with four of those losses coming at the Grand Slam level.
Musetti, meanwhile, can boast a sole win against the 39-year-old, but that came nearly three years ago now.
He has lost their other nine meetings, meaning Fritz and Musetti seemingly were playing for the honour of losing to Djokovic in the quarter-finals, if history is anything to go by.
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