Taylor Fritz’s girlfriend claims he beat Alexander Zverev ‘for the girls’ in apparent abuse allegation jibe

Taylor Fritz’s girlfriend claimed the American beat Alexander Zverev for ‘the girls’ in an apparent reference to the previous domestic abuse allegations against the German.

Fritz and Zverev had a long exchange at the net following the conclusion of their fourth round match on Centre Court regarding comments from the American’s box as he came back from two sets down to book a spot quarter-finals.

Morgan Riddle, a social media influencer and Fritz’s girlfriend, posted an image of Centre Court earlier in the day captioned ‘cheer loud ladies’, before later dancing in the now deleted video which also featured prayer, painting nails and heart emojis with the caption ‘when ur man wins 4 the girls’.

Zverev’s domestic violence trial reached an early conclusion last month without a ruling on whether the German tennis player had assaulted his former girlfriend or not, after the model and social-media personality Brenda Patea reached an out-of-court settlement with Zverev’s legal team which included no admission of guilt. Zverev denied all allegations against him.

Both players addressed their conversation at the net during their respective press conferences, with Zverev explaining that he had overheard comments from Fritz’s box, but not from his coaches.

“His team is extremely respectful. I think his coach, his physio, also his second coach, they’re extremely respectful. 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 watching every single match. They were a bit over the top,” Zverev explained.

“That’s okay. No issues. No drama. He fought back from two sets to love, so they’re obviously all excited, very pumped up, yeah. But no issues with Taylor. I think Taylor is a great guy. I have absolutely no issues with him.”

Fritz, through to his second Wimbledon quarter-final, offered his side of the story by adding that he had not heard any comments from his box while he was out on the court.

“At the net, like, it’s no big deal. I think he felt that he was for parts, towards the end of the fifth at least, kind of limping around a bit. I think he was annoyed at some people in my box just being loud, cheering for me.”

Zverev added that he was playing “on one leg today”, while noting that he expected Fritz to go on to make the semi-finals, with Fritz facing Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti.

“I do expect him to win in the quarters,” Zverev said. “But also I do know that the match was not high level. I mean, it wasn’t a particularly great tennis match. There wasn’t really long rallies because I couldn’t play long rallies. Again, it was all coming from me. I just couldn’t do that.”

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