The ATP Race to Turin came down to the final weeks of the season and sadly for Taylor Fritz, he was among a handful of players who missed out right at the last.
Fritz finished 10th in the race, some 360 points short of the cut-off entry. An untimely abdominal injury he picked up at the Paris Masters during his first-round win over Sebastian Baez proved much more serious despite his decision to play on in the match.
The lanky American underwent scans that ultimately forced him to pull out from his next match. It was a massive disappointment for Fritz who ended up pulling from his subsequent tournament in Sofia and calling time on his 2023 season.
With his qualification chances going up in smoke, Tennis TV social media operators rubbed salt to injury, with an artwork depicting all the eight qualified players for this year's ATP Finals, having all checked in and received their boarding passes waiting to fly to Turin.
Moreover, Taylor Frtiz, and Hubert Hurakcz, who finished just outside the top eight places despite making one last dash in the final weeks, were denied entry, with the photo portraying an airport security official shutting the gates on the pair. Fritz reacted with a laughing emoji, tweeting, "Nah common."
Hurkacz, with his hands folded, is seen giving Holger Rune the death stare in the photo. The Dane was the last man to qualify. Fritz, for his part, was holding his head, clearly saddened to miss out on the eight-man party.
Fritz made his ATP Finals debut at last year's tournament and impressed. He successfully navigated his way out of the group, beating Rafael Nadal and Felix Auger-Aliassime to reach the semifinal. There, he would lose to eventual winner Novak Djokovic in two tiebreak sets.
Poland's Hurkacz has also been to Turin back in 2021, but his campaign was rather uneventful. He was eliminated in the group stage losing all three round-robin matches. He can still get in as a first alternate to replace any of the players in the current list who pull out. So, maybe the gate could open up for him.
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