Taylor Fritz has revealed what Alexander Zverev said to him in the immediate aftermath of a five-set battle at Wimbledon which erupted into feud involving the American’s girlfriend.
Zverev accused members of Fritz’s box of going ‘over the top’ after the No 13 seed’s stunning comeback from two sets down on Centre Court.
Both during and after the match, Morgan Riddle appeared to take aim at the world No 4, who has faced allegations of abuse. He denies any wrongdoing.
The two players had what seemed a tense exchange at the net following Fritz’s win. During his on-court interview, Fritz was asked what was said: ‘It’s all good,’ he insisted.
‘Obviously with his knee it felt like in the fifth set he wasn’t moving as well so I just wished him the best.’
Social media influencer Riddle, who has 17.2million likes on TikTok, posted a video to Instagram after the match. It showed her celebrating the win and included the caption: ‘When your man wins 4 the girls.’ The story now appears to have been deleted.
Earlier, while the match was unfolding, she had posted a picture of the court to her story and wrote, ‘cheer loud ladies.’ That post also appears to have been taken down.
‘I think there’s some other people that maybe are in the box that are not maybe from the tennis world, that are not maybe from particularly watching every single match. They were a bit over the top.’
Last October, the Berlin-Tiergarten court issued a penalty order and a fine of around $488,000 against Zverev, who has denied Patea’s claims of abuse. He called the order ‘complete bulls***’ a month later.
Patea told German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung that Zverev choked her during an argument. Zverev has also been accused of domestic abuse by Olga Sharypova, a fellow tennis player and another ex-girlfriend of his.
Sharypova made the allegations – also denied by Zverev – in 2020, accusing him of punching her in the face and smothering her with a pillow.
The ATP investigated the claims (via an outside firm) for 15 months but ultimately did not discipline Zverev on the basis of insufficient evidence.
Following his settlement in June, Zverev said ‘I told you so from the start, I told everybody. I’m happy that it’s over. Yeah, nothing else more to say.’
After beating Zverev 4-6, 6-7 (4), 6-4, 7-6 (3), 6-3, Fritz will face Lorenzo Musetti with a chance to make his first Grand Slam semifinal.
The 26-year-old Fritz and Riddle have been dating for the past four years, with the latter establishing herself as a prominent social media content creator.
While she’s frequently documented herself happily taking in Fritz’s tournaments, she opened up earlier this year on her ‘scary’ experience at the Super Bowl after being ‘groped’ and ‘harassed’ by male NFL fans.
The influencer revealed that she had an ‘extremely stressful’ time at Allegiant Stadium.
Riddle detailed her traumatic ordeal on Instagram after the game between the Chiefs and 49ers admitting it caused her to have a panic attack in the restroom during the third quarter.
‘Wasn’t going to post about this but I actually think it’s important to,’ she wrote. ‘I can’t believe the levels of harassment we dealt with this weekend from men.
‘In the last 3 days I’ve been grabbed, gropped (sic), harassed, cat called incessantly – basically every few minutes when we were out in public. And it was really bad at the game today.
‘We couldn’t even enjoy the game without getting bothered by drunk, rude, gross male fans. It’s extremely stressful and scary.’
Riddle looked to have a much better time on Monday as she smiled from the stands and recorded her boyfriend’s match on her phone.
Fritz will face Musetti on Wednesday.
