By Richard Pagliaro | Sunday, May 24, 2026
Photo credit: Julien De Rosa/AFP/Getty
The red clay felt like a bed of red-hot coals and Taylor Fritz couldn’t stop the burn.
Playing just his second clay-court match of the year, Taylor Fritz felt French fried by Nishesh Basavareddy today.
In an all-American clash, wild card Basavareddy toppled the seventh-seeded Fritz 7-6(5), 7-6(5), 6-7(9), 6-1 sending the American No. 2 to his second straight French Open first round defeat.
Afterward, Fritz credit Basavareddy’s “insane” dipping drop shot as the kill shot.
Ultimately, Basavareddy buried Fritz with soft touch.
“He just played incredibly well. I mean, the biggest thing was just the dropshots were crazy,” Fritz said. “He was hitting dropshots. Typically when someone is dropshotting me too much, I kind of just tell myself, okay, I need to hit the ball deeper.
“He was hitting insane dropshots, like, off balls that were landing on the baseline.
“He killed me with that, and there’s not really much I can do about it, like I said. I feel like he’s just hitting insane dropshots off of crazy shots to hit dropshots off of… He really cooked me with the dropshots today. I was very impressed with his feel.”
A knee injury sidelined Fritz from his fourth-round Miami Open loss to Jiri Lehecka until Geneva last week where he dropped his first red-clay match of the year to Alexei Popyrin.
It is Fritz’s second straight opening-round exit in Paris coming a year after the fourth seed lost to No. 66 Daniel Altmaier here.
Asked afterward if he considered shutting down clay season to rest his knee for grass-court season, Fritz said he’s been taking anti-inflammatories and his knee has improved.
Still, the 2024 US Open finalist is unsure how his knee will respond to the low bounce and rapid directional shifts grass-court tennis presents.
“I’m going to get more time now to keep going back to the rehab and keep getting it better, hopefully. I
think grass is going to be a real test for it,” Fritz said. “There are so many choppy, choppy steps. It’s really tough on the patella, and that’s kind of where I feel like last year the knee started kind of getting worse for me.
“So I think grass is going to be a big test. You know, it is what it is. I feel like I was kind of in a similar situation last year. I wasn’t injured the whole clay court season. I think I lost first round French Open and went into grass court season I think somewhere, like, 20-something in the race.
“Kind of in a similar situation this year, so hoping I can turn it around like I did last year.”