Taylor Fritz may have very routinely handled Holger Rune at the Shanghai Masters but afterward made it clear that he was feeling "awful" mentally and physically over the extremely demanding ATP calendar.
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On Tuesday, the American tennis star crushed the 14th-ranked Dane 6-1 6-2 to safely progress into the Shanghai quarterfinal. Although it was expected to probably be a tight battle, the recent US Open runner-up needed just 55 minutes to seal the win.
For world No. 7 Fritz, it was his 67th match of the season and he now owns a 48-19 record. When asked how he feeling amid approaching to nearly playing 70 matches in 2024, the 26-year-old was straight honest. Also, the former world No. 5 shared that he has been dealing with injuries since May but hasn't been able to fully heal from them because there is always something going on.
"Pretty awful (smiling). Yeah, I mean, it's like the season is too long. I always thought if I got ranked higher I could play less, and I am, I am playing less tournaments, but I'm also winning a lot more matches at the big tournaments, so I'm playing probably more than ever, even though I thought it wasn't going to be like this (laughing)," Fritz said.
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"I've been dealing with injuries since the French Open that I haven't had time to get to go away, I've kind of just been playing through. That's the thing, if an injury is not completely bad enough to keep me out, then I'm just going to play, I don't want to, you know, waste months, and just slowly it gets better, and it kind of has. But, yeah, and that's not just me, there's, at this time of the year most of the guys have been going all year, everyone's dealing with something."
Fritz isn't the only star who recently aired frustrations about the schedule
ATP and WTA players ripping the calendar in tennis isn't anything new. But when Carlos Alcaraz made one comment recently, it sent shockwaves throughout the tennis world as the four-time Grand Slam champion said that the players are going to "get killed in some way" if nothing changes with the calendar.
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In that same interview, the world No. 2 admitted to entering some tournaments unmotivated because he basically wasn't in the proper state to play.
"Probably they are going to kill us in some way. Right now a lot of good players are going to miss a lot of tournaments because of that. Sometimes, you don't want to go to a tournament. I'm not going to lie -- I have felt this way a few times already. Sometimes I don't feel motivated at all. But as I've said many, many times, I play my best tennis when I smile and enjoy it on court. That's the best option to keep motivating (myself)," Alcaraz said in Berlin.
Just as the Spaniard's comments were going viral, Alexander Zverev joined in by also harshly slamming the calendar. In his interview, the 2024 French Open runner-up claimed that the ATP was just interested in getting their money and not listening to the players and their needs.
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"The ATP doesn't care about our opinion -- it's a money business. It's the longest season in sports. It's unnecessarily long. We have an unnecessary amount of tournaments... We're not allowed to boycott, we get fined if we don't play tournaments. The tour goes on without you. We need to do something about it. It's not an easy solution, but a solution which needs to be made," Zverev said.
Fritz avoided playing Zverev in Shanghai
After the American sealed a quarterfinal spot in Shanghai, he was awaiting the winner of the Zverev and David Goffin match. Even though the world No. 3 was the big favorite in that match, it was the 66th-ranked Belgian who won 6-4 7-5.
In the last three months, Fritz three times beat the German - at Wimbledon, the US Open and the Laver Cup. And a reporter was curious if he would like to face Zverev again.
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"No, I mean, if anything, I think Sascha is probably, I mean, he could be due, he could be due for one. But (laughing) that's also what I said before, I guess, the Laver Cup match as well, so we'll see. I've won the last three, but, I mean, the Wimbledon match, was obviously down two sets, could have gone either way. The US Open match was really close, could have gone either way. You know, it's not maybe as one-sided as it would appear for someone having won versus lost three matches," the American said.
Against Goffin, Fritz enters as the favorite and it will be a great chance for the 26-year-old to reach his first Shanghai semifinal.
