World No.7 Taylor Fritz admitted his focus was all over the place after he suffered a straight set loss against Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinal of Wimbledon on Wednesday. Fritz had been dominating Zverev in the last two years but could not bring his best against the German at Court no. 1.

The American had to manage knee tendinitis throughout the season but still had an impressive run throughout the grass season. Fritz also made it to the Stuttgart Open but lost to compatriot Ben Shelton in the summit clash.

“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.”

Fritz revealed he felt 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 had won the seven consecutive meetings against Zverev.