Knee, oblique injuries contribute to Taylor Fritz defeat vs. Lorenzo Musetti at Australian Open

MELBOURNE, Australia—Taylor Fritz exited the 2026 Australian Open under a major injury cloud on Monday, confirming a recurrence of past knee and oblique injuries contributed to a 6-2, 7-5, 6-4 defeat against Lorenzo Musetti.

"Today I was feeling it from the get-go," Fritz confirmed in his post-match press conference. "I felt good in my warm-up this morning. Then when I went to do my pre-match stuff, like moving around and stuff before the match, I just I told my physio, I was like, 'My knee just doesn't feel great.'

"I was hoping it would loosen up. I mean, it didn't get worse. I don't really think it got worse, but it kind of just stayed the same the entire match. It was just, like, pretty much everything was bothering it."

Fritz started the year playing through visible discomfort in his right knee due to a bout of tendonitis but had settled into a groove until the end of the Australian Open’s first week. The injury unfortunately flared up over four sets against Stan Wawrinka in the fourth round on Saturday and persisted against the fifth-seeded Musetti, who booked a quarterfinal clash with 10-time champion Novak Djokovic.

The No. 9 seed further confirmed pain in his oblique, for which he underwent two ultrasounds and an MRI to ensure no tear had occurred through his first three matches; Fritz had initially declined to elaborate on health issues beyond those concerning his knee, but he sported visible tape across his torso for his last match of the tournament.

"I felt like in the first round it wasn't that big of an issue," explained Fritz. "In the second round maybe a little bit more.

"Then in the match with Stan my oblique was actually killing me when I was trying to return. He'd like kick his second serve to my backhand. I was just, like, I could not hit it without... Like, I could only push it if I tried to, like, turn on it. It was killing me."

Though Fritz toyed with the idea of taking an extended break after feeling the effects of the knee tendonitis at United Cup, he has decided give his body another chance at the Nexo Dallas Open in February before reevaluating whether a longer hiatus is necessary to ensure a full recovery.

"I was fully ready to shut it down for a couple of months to get it better," Fritz admitted, "but you know, my physio, who is great and I trust him, he said that, you know, he thinks there's a pretty solid chance that we can do all the rehab protocol and do everything we need to do while I'm still playing. I can rest when I have rests between the tournaments, maybe not play as many tournaments. You know, he thinks that it's plausible to get it better while playing. So we said let's try that and see how it goes.

"You know, like I said, up until three days ago, I thought it was going pretty well. So I think that's still the plan moving forward."