By Richard Pagliaro | Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Photo credit: Swiss Indoors Basel Facebook
Taylor Fritz pushed Carlos Alcaraz to the limit—and his body to the breaking point—in Turin today.
The top-seeded Alcaraz dispensed creativity and forward finishing skills fending off Fritz 6-7(2), 7-5, 6-3 in a dizzying drama to raise his ATP Finals record to 2-0 in the Jimmy Connors Group.
The two hour, 48-minute epic served as a shotmaking showcase and stands as the best singles match of these ATP Finals.
Afterward, Fritz, who fell to 1-1 in round-robin play, conceded tendinitis left his cranky knee feeling “completely cooked.”
“I mean, there’s definitely frustration ’cause, like I said, I felt like I had my opportunities. I mean,
to be completely honest, it’s just the flatness is just my knee. My knee’s completely cooked,” Fritz told the media in Turin. “There’s nothing I can really do.
“I’ve been dealing with it all year. I’ve had tendinitis all year long. It didn’t start to become a problem in my actual tennis matches until around grass court season, after grass court season. Up until then I would only ever feel the pain after cooling down, after being done. It was never an issue. That’s when I started feeling it during matches.”
The sixth-seeded Fritz fought off eight of 11 break points today, but the stress of punishing baseline rallies and the sudden surges required to run down Alcaraz drop shots provoked pain in his knee. Fritz said he felt flatness and a lack of explosion in the final set.
“Kind of since that part of the year I’ve really struggled to kind of play back-to-back days without it flaring up,” Fritz said. “I feel like if I play one really hard day where I’m moving intensely and playing hard, then I need a day for it to kind of calm down. Tokyo was the only time this whole year, for whatever reason, I was able to play back-to-back days without pain.
“Yeah, I started feeling it towards the end of the first set, but it didn’t really affect me until the third set. It just got to the point where I was really struggling to bend my back leg on my serve, step into backhands, load the leg, my right leg, for like an open-stance forehand. Yeah, I mean, the feeling of flatness, I’m really struggling with it.”
The 2024 finalist Fritz has one final round-robin match remaining against Alex de Minaur in what would be a clash for a semifinal spot.
Through two matches in Turin, Fritz has served exceptionally well. Fritz, who swept Lorenzo Musetti in his opener, has hammered 27 aces against only two double faults and saved 12 of 15 break points in two matches this week.
The 28-year-old American said he plans to play through the knee pain.
“I mean, the thing is in order to deal with this, you need a certain amount of weeks to
strengthen it where you’re not pounding on it playing tennis,” Fritz said. “Unfortunately that time period you need, that does not exist in the tennis season.
“Obviously, as you can see, yesterday played a great match. Today I played two sets at an incredible level.
Why would you ever stop for four to six weeks when I can do this on the court? I’m just going to play through.”
