Taylor Fritz Shares Injury Update Following Opening Match Win at the Dallas Open

Taylor Fritz is into the round of 16 of the Dallas Open.

Taylor Fritz Shares Injury Update Following Opening Match Win at the Dallas Open

Taylor Fritz (Image via X/Jose Morgado)

In Short
  • Taylor Fritz won his opening match at the Dallas Open against Marcos Giron in three sets.
  • He experienced knee pain during the match but confirmed it was not related to his ongoing tendinitis.
  • Fritz will face Brandon Nakashima in the round of 16, holding a 2-1 lead in their head-to-head record.

Top seed Taylor Fritz was back on the court at the Dallas Open for the first time since the Australian Open in Melbourne. The American star needed to battle hard in three sets to overcome fellow American Marcos Giron at the ATP 500 tournament as he secured a place in the round of 16.

Fritz had exited the Australian Open in the round of 16 after losing to Lorenzo Musetti in straight sets. The American star is the top seed in Dallas for the fourth time in five years and the favorite to win the tournament. The 28-year-old was expecting an easy opening match against Giron but found himself frustrated in the second set.

He had won the opening set after breaking Giron once, but the second set, it was a battle until the eleventh game. Giron broke Fritz, which was not surprising as the pair split their two previous meetings at the tournament. In the third set, Fritz emerged with determination, seeking not to prolong the contest, but he tweaked his knee.

The former World No. 4 requires treatment from the physio due to pain. But after treatment, he quickly recovered and showed statistical superiority in the third set as he didn’t face a break point and dominated the tiebreak 6-0 before Giron managed to win just one point. He completed the win 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(1).

When Fritz tweaked his leg, he was afraid that the issue was related to his lingering knee tendinitis. He has been dealing with the knee problem for the past two seasons, but has managed to continue playing. During his post-match interview with Tennis Channel, he noted that when he tweaked his knee, he felt a sharp pain that made him scared:

It had nothing to do with the tendinitis I’ve been dealing with for a while. It was weird. I don’t know if I did it on a return or running for the first ball of his service game, but it happened on the first point of that game. I kind of just tweaked my knee. When I was lifting it, I was getting a sharp pain. It got a little better the next game when I served, and then I called the physio over just to make sure everything was good.

Fritz, who is seeking to compete with Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, is seeking his first title on tour since the Eastbourne International in June. The 28-year-old reached the fourth round of the Australian Open, which was far better than his third-round exit in 2025. At Dallas last year, he reached the round of 16 before losing to eventual champion Denis Shapovalov in three sets.

Taylor Fritz excited about his third-set performance in the second round of the Dallas Open

Taylor Fritz now holds an overwhelming 13-0 record in the opening round of hard-court events since last season. The American star has also improved his record to 17-1 against players outside the Top 50 of the ATP rankings. Also, his three-set win against Marcos Giron was his sixth victory over the American, taking their head-to-head record to 6-2.

Taylor Fritz
Taylor Fritz (Image via X/The Tennis Letter)

The Stuttgart Open champion had a poor game in the second set against Giron, but heade amends in the third set tiebreak, producing some scintillating flash points. He revealed during the aforementioned interview that he increased the tempo of his game in the third set and made sure he maintained the level:

But in the third set, I thought from start to finish I returned serve about as well as I could for an entire set. I don’t think I played one bad return game. It sounds crazy because I didn’t break, but it’s one of the best returning sets I’ve played in a long time. And then in the tiebreaker, I did a really good job of keeping that level up and also making a ton of first serves.

Fritz will face another American, Brandon Nakashima, in the round of 16 of the Dallas Open. The former leads the latter 2-1 in their head-to-head record, but Nakashima won their most recent meeting in the second round of the Cincinnati Open in 2024.

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