The Audacity of Big Foe
Frances Tiafoe’s rise has been the talk of the U.S. Open, but his path to the pros is difficult to follow for other young Black men hoping for a career in tennis.Frances Tiafoe has everything needed to be a difference maker in tennis.The swag. Calm and confident, Tiafoe danced off the court following his quarterfinal win on Wednesday, bathing in the roars from a packed crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium.The strokes. Propulsive forehands and backhands. Easy, 135-mile-per-hour aces. Volleys with McEnroe-esque touch.The back story. The son of parents who emigrated from Sierra Leone, he learned the sport at the nonprofit tennis center that his contractor father, Constant, helped build.Then there’s the smile. Oh, that smile. Tiafoe flashes it quickly and often. Before matches, after matches, during matches. He exudes a joy for the game he is playing that is not only uncommon in professional sports, it’s magnetic.Until this week, Big Foe, as he is known, has flashed each of these qualities in teases, while never quite fulfilling his promise. But at this U.S. Open, Tiafoe, 24, has put it together. And by moving through the singles draw to Friday’s semifinals, his star turn has pulled in a far wider audience than is typical for tennis.“CONGRATS Young King!!! You earned it” LeBron James posted on Twitter after Tiafoe sprinted to the biggest win of his career in the round of 16, a four-set demolition of Rafael Nadal.Apologies to the rest of the field, but this tournament has so far been defined primarily by the celebration of two players: Serena Williams, who jolted the grounds to life during Week 1, and Tiafoe, the American fan favorite, who has kept the heartbeat pounding.Williams’s legacy is so pervasive that her power game can be seen in players throughout the women’s singles draw — particularly in the strong number of highly ranked Black women who first got into tennis because they saw themselves in Williams and her sister Venus.But men’s professional tennis has not seen a similar surge of Black talent. Can the game find a Black male player who will energize the next generations?At least one top Black male player from every generation since Arthur Ashe’s has lived with the same question.Yannick Noah, who won the French Open in 1983.MaliVai Washington, who made it to the Wimbledon finals in 1996.James Blake, the former top-five star who beat Nadal and then nearly defeated Andre Agassi at the 2005 U.S. Open.James Blake, who beat Rafael Nadal at the 2005 U.S. Open, was once a player tennis fans wondered would energize the next generation.Robert Caplin/New York TimesNow it seems to be Tiafoe’s turn. He can certainly move the needle with a win, but how much?Well, first off, any movement at all would be a start.Other than Tiafoe, there are a scant few Black men on the ATP Tour. And other than Tiafoe, Canada’s Félix Auger-Aliassime, 22, and the 36-year-old Frenchman Gaël Monfils, none appears capable of competing for major titles any time soon.What about in the college pipeline that continues to churn out solid professional players who are white?If you’re a regular reader of my column you may know that in the late 1980s I played college tennis at California-Berkeley. Back then, I was among a rough handful of Black collegiate players ranked in the top 100. It was basically the same small number in the 1990s — the same in the early 2000s.And now?“Not much has changed,” said Bryan Shelton, the first Division I college coach to win national titles in both men’s and women’s tennis. Shelton, an African American, was a star player at Georgia Tech during my era, and went on to have a solid professional career. Coaching Florida’s men to a championship last year, his team included his son, Ben, who made it into the singles and doubles draws at this year’s U.S. Open.In men’s college tennis, “There are maybe eight to 10 Black players in the top 100 rankings now,” he said. “So that’s a tick up, but let’s face it, only a slight one.”As we spoke, I remembered how, up through my early high school years, I used to be embarrassed to be seen with my tennis rackets. Tennis wasn’t exactly hip, and for a while I thought of going back to basketball or football, sports where I could easily blend in and not feel so alone.“Frances can help make tennis cool,” Shelton said. But then he cautioned, “At the same time, the roadblocks that existed before, exist now.”In many Black American communities, it’s hard to find tennis courts and nearly impossible to find easily accessible coaching. The United States Tennis Association is making strides in building up a network of junior programs across the country, through National Junior Tennis and Learning, started by Ashe in the 1960s to bring the game to underserved communities.Programs like the N.J.T.L. are making a dent in the push to develop players. Still, the cost of playing remains the most significant barrier for many. Becoming a nationally ranked junior requires group and private lessons, intense training and travel that can cost parents $30,000 per year, on the low end. And because players tend to need several years to develop their games, the layout could last six to 10 years.Chris Evert, a former player and an ESPN analyst, signed autographs while visiting kids from six Philadelphia-area chapters of National Junior Tennis and Learning, a program Arthur Ashe started in the 1960s to bring the sport to underserved communities.Jose F. Moreno/The Philadelphia Inquirer, via Associated PressHow many parents of any color can spend that kind of money?I’ve talked to numerous parents of young Black girls over the years who said they were willing to make the financial sacrifice because there are so many college opportunities — usually nine full scholarships per team at the Division I level — available for female tennis players.For the men? Shelton said Division I teams typically have only four and a half scholarships, and those are usually split among several players. Fewer scholarships means less incentive to pay the cost in time and money required to raise a college-level male player.Tiafoe was lucky. He was a prodigy — so good, so early that he turned pro at 17.What if Frances had not had the exposure and access to tennis in grade school that led to him becoming obsessed with the game?What if Martin Blackman, then director of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., had not spotted Tiafoe’s talent and helped his family handle the costs and training?“We wouldn’t be here talking about him,” said Blackman, now the head of the U.S.T.A.’s player development program. In other words, Tiafoe wouldn’t be Big Foe, a semifinalist at the U.S. Open, getting a shoutout from LeBron James. Tiafoe might not even be a tennis player at all.Full disclosure: When the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the N.J.T.L. was kind enough to give me its Arthur Ashe Award of Excellence in 2020, I interviewed Tiafoe over a videoconference for a celebratory gala.“I am the type of guy who can put two weeks together and win a Grand Slam,” he assured me, and I have to admit, at the time, with his ranking hovering around 50th in the world, I thought it a far-fetched statement.Now, I’m not so sure. More
