He entered that tournament ranked 145th, and after losing to No. 7 Kei Nishikori, 6-4, 6-4, in the final, Fritz moved up 43 spots as a result of his performance. But he did not have much time to celebrate. He hopped on a plane to South Florida the next day to get ready for his first-round match against his fellow American Tim Smyczek in the Delray Beach Open.

With all of the attention surrounding his meteoric rise, and the persistent angst about the state of American men’s tennis, Fritz was in high demand. On Monday, he found himself being shuffled around from a news conference to a round of one-on-one interviews with CNN and others. He did not take the court for his practice round until that night, with high winds hampering his ability to work on his groundstrokes.

Less than 24 hours later, an exhausted and admittedly unprepared Fritz bowed out of the tournament, losing to Smyczek, 6-3, 6-3.

“It was really tough going from the slow indoors to the fast outdoors when I really didn’t have any practice at all,” Fritz said. “It showed on the court. I got out there and really was struggling to hit the ball how I wanted to, and it’s my fault for not being ready enough. I didn’t see what more I could do, and it was unfortunate that I played so bad.”

Once again, Fritz had little time to reflect as he faced a predawn wake-up call so he could catch a flight out of Miami to Acapulco for the Abierto Mexicano Telcel, which starts Monday. As if the hectic travel schedule was not enough, he ran into some complications in Mexico City and had to deal with a long layover.