Taylor Fritz’s grass swing had been building toward something big. He reached the final in both Stuttgart and at Halle’s Terra Wortmann Open, and dropped just one set on his way to the Wimbledon quarterfinals. Then his knee, a problem that first flared as minor inflammation at last year’s Tokyo event before worsening at the ATP Finals, forced a medical timeout against Alexander Zverev and played a real role in his loss at SW19. Instead of taking the rest that might come with it, Fritz signed straight up for the Mubadala DC Open.

“I’ve talked a lot about the knee,” he said in an interview with Tennis TV. “I think after having some time off it, it starts to feel better, so we’ll see how much tennis it can handle. It’s going to continue to keep getting stronger as I keep working on it do my rehab I do it every single day. So, at a certain point, it can get irritating while playing a lot of tennis. But at the end of the day, I’d rather be playing, and it gets to that point, then it gets to that point.”

The knee has been an issue since last season. Fritz revealed he was dealing with tendinitis at the 2025 ATP Finals, admitting his knee was “completely cooked” after a group-stage loss to Carlos Alcaraz. He returned at the 2026 Australian Open and stayed active for a few months, until things fell apart again at the Miami Open, where a loss to Jiri Lehecka was followed by nearly two months out.

That layoff nearly cost him the entire clay swing. He came back at the Geneva Open and lost in the first round to Alexei Popyrin, then suffered another early exit, reportedly to Nishesh Basavareddy, though the reported score for that match doesn’t hold up and I wasn’t able to confirm the correct one. He finished the clay season without a win. The grass swing turned things around in a hurry, though the knee trouble resurfacing at Wimbledon was a real blow after everything he’d built.

Currently ranked world No. 10 and seeded third in Washington, Fritz picked the hard courts to test how much the knee can actually handle right now.

Taylor Fritz storms past Zizou Bergs in the first round at DC Open

Fritz got through his opener 6-3, 6-4, needing to save three break points in the first set before finding his footing, and closed it out on two breaks of his own for his 250th career hard-court win. Afterward, he admitted the conditions made rhythm tricky.

“It’s tough to get a rhythm here,” he told Tennis Channel. “The balls are flying, and I kind of knew going into the match there were going to be more errors in general from both players.”

He also gave an update on the knee itself, crediting the work that got him through the grass season in the first place.

“I played nine matches in 11 days between Stuttgart and Halle, and I think five or six of those were three-set matches, then obviously Wimbledon as well,” he said. “It’s just knee tendinitis, and it takes a long time to rebuild and strengthen the tendon. It’s not fully there yet in terms of how much load it can handle.”

The win extended his head-to-head lead over Bergs to 2-0, with both meetings coming this season, the first at Halle in June, 7-6, 5-7, 6-4.

Fritz will face Kamil Majchrzak in the second round, after Majchrzak got past Tommy Paul, the same groom Fritz stood up for as a groomsman just weeks ago. Fritz and Majchrzak last met at the 2022 Indian Wells Masters, where Fritz won 6-1, 6-1. He’ll look for a repeat as he keeps testing exactly how much tennis that knee can take before the US Open.