Sam Querrey reacts after Taylor Fritz loses in the first round of the French Open 

The American, currently ranked 9th in the world, came into Roland Garros having played just one match on clay this season: a loss at the Geneva Open. 

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He spent two months sidelined with an ongoing knee injury and missed all three clay-court ATP Masters 1000 events. 

While Fritz was the seventh seed in Paris, former American player Sam Querrey says he was not shocked to see his compatriot bow out early.

Sam Querrey says Taylor Fritz’s loss ‘wasn’t that surprising’

Reacting to the result on TNT Sports US, Querrey said: “This one wasn’t that surprising, I don’t think. We all know Fritz didn’t play in Rome, didn’t play in Madrid, lost first round last week in Geneva.

“He’s been battling a knee injury, it’s something we’ve talked about for the last couple of years. He plays a ton of tennis.

“We wanted to say, when is he going to take a little time off? He finally did, so he hasn’t been that sharp going into this match.

“Having said that, he was fine today, but it is tough when you don’t have a lot of matches under your belt, especially on the clay.  Basavareddy takes that first set, 7-6, and we knew he was going to move Fritz around the court today.

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“In fact, he had 27 drop shots, 13 of them were for winners, so he was really exposing the movement of Taylor Fritz, especially that forward movement. Second set, again goes to  Basavareddy, 7-6, and it was this third set, it was unbelievable.

“He actually got up 3-0 in this tiebreaker before Fritz kind of went on a storm and took that third set tiebreaker. It was that point that we maybe thought Taylor Fritz was going to run away with possibly the fourth set, possibly the fifth set.

“He gets fired up. When you see a top 10 player give that kind of reaction after winning the third set, being down two sets to love, this is not what you thought would happen. He came out 5-0, lost the fourth set 6-1.

“Maybe it’s due to Taylor Fritz’s lack of matches, but I expect him to be back and ready to go for the grass court season, but great win for  Basavareddy.”

Nishesh Basavareddy’s golden opportunity in Paris

Basavareddy, aged 21, has never made it past the second round of a major, but he now has a golden opportunity to go far in the French capital.

He now takes on what would have been Fritz’s path to the quarterfinals, which was a fairly favourable one for the 28-year-old.

Placed in the third quarter of the draw, Basavareddy is on the opposite half to overwhelming favourite Jannik Sinner.

Basavareddy is, however, in the same half of the draw as both Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic, both of whom won their opening matches on Sunday.

The young US star is ranked 148th in the world, but he can improve his ranking a lot should he make a lengthy run at Roland Garros.