Tiafoe, Frances (1998- )

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      Carlos Alcaraz Outlasts Frances Tiafoe to Reach the US Open Final

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      Nearly every year now, it seems, the U.S. Open becomes a life-changing event.Last year a British teenager, a few months removed from her high school graduation, showed up in New York for the qualifying tournament in late August. Three weeks later, Emma Raducanu left the city as a Grand Slam champion and global sensation.This time around, Frances Tiafoe, an electric 24-year-old who has long been filled with unrealized upside, took the journey from virtual unknown to a player who could draw the former first lady Michelle Obama and the actor Jamie Foxx out to watch him.Tiafoe brought his remarkable story: He is the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone, his father a maintenance worker at a local tennis center, where coaches discovered his little boy hitting balls against a wall. Now Tiafoe was bidding to become the first American man since Andy Roddick to make the U.S. Open final. Already he was the first American man to make the semifinals of this tournament in 16 years.Another two wins would have been ground-shifting for the sport in America, akin to Serena Williams’s first Grand Slam title at this tournament 23 years ago, and coming a little more than a week after Williams played what was likely her last match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, in front of a screaming throng of nearly 24,000 fans.“I wanted to be here on Sunday holding the cup,” Tiafoe said. “I had it in my head.”But Tiafoe ran into Carlos Alcaraz on Friday night, the 19-year-old sensation from Spain who now seems poised to be the one to have his life changed by the U.S. Open. Alcaraz, who somehow found enough reserves to come back after winning a quarterfinal match that lasted more than five hours and didn’t end until nearly 3 a.m. Thursday, proved to be too much for Tiafoe, prevailing in five sets, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3.“Amazing to be able to fight for big things,” Alcaraz said.Alcaraz, 19, chased down balls in every corner.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesFrances Tiafoe, 24, matched Alcaraz’s power.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesIt took nearly everything Alcaraz had. He had played roughly 10 hours of tennis in his previous two matches, which included 10 grueling sets. Alcaraz skipped practice altogether Thursday, and hit for just 30 minutes before the match Friday.Whatever psychic and physical energy that saved, he needed all of it for a battle that had him down, then even, then coasting, then clawed back by an opponent desperate not to cede the stage. Then in the last set he was up once more, and then all even again.The crowd rode every wave, with the match sounding like a New York Rangers hockey game as fans bellowed “Let’s go, Tiafoe!” — and then shifting to something like a soccer match in Madrid, as choruses of “Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé” rang through the stands, only to turn back into a Rangers game again.When it was finally finished, just before midnight, 4 hours 18 minutes after it began, Alcaraz had become the first teenage man to reach a Grand Slam final since Rafael Nadal won his first French Open in 2005. That was the first of 22 Nadal has captured in his career. If Alcaraz beats Casper Ruud of Norway on Sunday, he will rise to No. 1 in the world rankings, and who knows how many more Grand Slams he will win.He finished off Tiafoe with a magical lob to get to triple match point, and he needed all three, with Tiafoe finally netting one last backhand. Tiafoe and Alcaraz hugged in the middle of the court, and when they separated, Alcaraz pointed at Tiafoe, urging the fans to let him hear them one last time.“I gave it everything I had,” Tiafoe said, before telling Alcaraz what a privilege it had been to share this stage with him. Then he pledged to come back and beat him here one day and win this thing. He pointed to the former first lady on the way out.Tiafoe got off to a shaky start, missing early on his dangerous first serve and lofting his second serve as slowly as 75 miles per hour.Fortunately for Tiafoe, he was facing an opponent who looked like he had barely rested after his marathon quarterfinal match. Alcaraz struggled to find his rhythm early on and couldn’t take advantage of Tiafoe’s nerves.Slowly, both players settled in. After a half-hour, they were doing what they do best. Tiafoe banged away with his serve and met every bit of Alcaraz’s power. Alcaraz began to chase down balls that most players would not bother with, but when he arrived he was rarely in position to do much with them. Tiafoe got his first chance to win the set while leading 6-5, with Alcaraz serving, and then earned four more chances when the set moved to a tiebreaker.Tiafoe won two tiebreakers, bringing his tiebreaker record to 8-0 this tournament.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesOn the fifth set point, Alcaraz finally cracked, double-faulting. Tiafoe started for his chair, then paused to look at the fans and soak in the love they were giving him. As he got to his chair, he glanced up at himself on the big screen at the top of the stadium and nodded.Tiafoe had just won his 16th set out of 17 he had played in the tournament. Facing an opponent running on fumes who had just played for more than an hour and had nothing to show for it, he had every reason to believe his journey had a long way to go.Alcaraz, though, is different than anyone Tiafoe had faced during the first 10 days of the tournament, even last Monday, when he became the first American born after 1989 to beat Nadal in a Grand Slam. Nadal had played little since tearing an abdominal muscle at Wimbledon and could not summon his usual power and stamina.From the start, so many of Alcaraz’s balls found the outside edges of the sidelines and the back of the baseline, leaving Tiafoe wondering if the electronic line-calling machine could possibly be right. Like a pitcher with late movement on his fastball, Alcaraz hit shots that looked like they would sail wide and long but suddenly darted into a corner.Balls that don’t come back against other players come back when Alcaraz is on the other side of the net. There is not an inch of the court that seems out of his reach. No point is finished until a ball has bounced twice or has crashed into the back wall. He hits searing winners while running away from the net. A twist of his hips, a flick of his wrist, and the ball is sailing past.If Tiafoe’s story is all about kismet, Alcaraz’s has seemed preordained. His grandfather owns a tennis club and he has long trained with the former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero.Tiafoe stayed even with Alcaraz through the first five games of the second set, but trouble arrived when he was serving at 2-3. That’s when Alcaraz showed that if he can stay healthy, he could have a career as good as anyone who has ever played the game.Alcaraz executed several perfect lobs during the match.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHe earned his chance to break Tiafoe’s serve for the first time all night, running down a ball deep in the backhand corner and catching up with a drop shot close to the net. With a chance to put away the point, Tiafoe sent it long, then did it once more on the next point.Tiafoe would have chances to get back into the set twice more, but Alcaraz shut the door both times, the first by mixing slices and topspin through a long rally, the second with a serve Tiafoe could not get back. By the end of the set, Tiafoe was showing his first signs of frustration, swatting his racket at the air, as though he knew what was about to come.What came next was ugly. The first two sets had lasted 109 minutes. The third one was over in 33. Alcaraz came out on fire, and Tiafoe came out as a shadow of the player he was in the first set when he grabbed the early lead.Alcaraz won 12 of the first 13 points, building a 3-0 lead and breaking Tiafoe’s serve three times as he rolled to a two-sets-to-one advantage.By the end of the set, Tiafoe looked lost, double-faulting, committing error after error, unable to get his feet behind the ball and set up to swing. Alcaraz beat him every which way, pushing him deep into the backcourt, then drawing him up to the net and passing him, as he seized control of a match that seemed like it would be over very soon.But then Tiafoe became someone Alcaraz had not yet faced — a hometown favorite with more than 20,000 friends ready to help him climb back from the brink.And he did, pulling even at 3-3 and saving a match point at 4-5 by chasing down a drop shot that had the former first lady up out of her seat and urging him on.He did as he was told, pushing the set to a tiebreaker, where he cranked up his serve and finally got Alcaraz to make enough mistakes to force the deciding set. Tiafoe’s performance in tiebreakers, which had been 6-0 at the start of the night, was now 8-0, a record at the U.S. Open.His eyes wide, he nodded up at those thousands of new buddies he had made. This journey was nearly over, but not quite yet.Maybe, though, it’s part of a much larger journey that Tiafoe is on. He has already come so far.Alcaraz will face Casper Ruud in the final on Sunday.Karsten Moran for The New York Times More

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      Looking for More Frances Tiafoes

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      It is impossible to quantify how many young Black girls have signed up for tennis lessons since the late 1990s when Serena and Venus Williams burst onto the scene under the guidance of their father, Richard Williams, or how many parents of athletic Black girls living in America, tried to follow his blueprint and repeat the Williams’s success.The number is surely significant, though — enough that despite significant barriers to entry, two generations of top Black female players, including Sloane Stephens, Taylor Townsend and now Coco Gauff, already a Grand Slam finalist at 18 years old, have emerged.Black American men have not had a Grand Slam champion to look up to since Arthur Ashe in the 1970s, and have had precious few billboard-worthy top Black players to admire. Maybe one day they will have Frances Tiafoe, who is Black and played one of the most compelling matches in U.S. Open history Friday night, coming up just short in the semifinals against Carlos Alcaraz of Spain. Even in the loss, Tiafoe, who is 24 years old, announced himself, last night and all week, as a potentially transformative star.With the riches of far more accessible sports so obvious and ubiquitous, the people trying to make American men’s tennis better and more diverse have had a steep hill to climb to overcome that void that has long existed. Gauff’s younger brother, it’s worth noting, is a teenage baseball prospect.“The little Black kid will always understand which sports star looks like their skin color,” said Alexandra Stevenson, a former pro who grew up playing with the Williams sisters. “It matters.”Tiafoe’s parents are immigrants from Sierra Leone.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTiafoe has long had a sort of magnetic appeal, especially among people of color. At the 2020 U.S. Open, when no spectators were on the grounds, he played a second-round match against John Millman of Australia on Court 11 that turned into a five-set marathon.As Tiafoe began to climb out of a two-sets-to-one deficit, perhaps 100 maintenance, food and security workers getting off their shifts at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where people of color account for much of the staff, began to fill the empty stands. By the time Tiafoe finished off his comeback win, it was loud on Court 11, louder than any match during that eerily quiet Grand Slam.Tiafoe’s origin story is fast becoming one of the great legends of tennis.An impoverished son of immigrant parents from Sierra Leone discovers tennis and thrives because his father does maintenance at a local tennis center, putting him on the runway to the top of the sport. The story is perfectly positioned to serve as an inspiration to a generation of young Black boys. For the people who make a living searching for someone like Tiafoe, the story is both inspiring and terrifying.They know how easily it could have gone another way, as it has for so many gifted young athletes, many of them Black, many of them poor, who never held a tennis racket until it was too late, if at all. Their physical gifts and dedication had turned them into teenage sensations in basketball or football, or any of the other lucrative athletic pursuits where they have long seen people who look like them at the pinnacle of the sport.Michelle Obama, center, the former first lady of the United States, attended Tiafoe’s semifinals match on Friday.Matthew Stockman/Getty ImagesBobblehead dolls of Tiafoe were set out for a U.S. Open watch party in College Park, Md.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf Tiafoe’s father had worked in an office park instead of a tennis center, would the boy with all that speed and strength instead be suiting up for his N.F.L. team’s opening game Sunday? Would he be using his hands that maneuver a 10-ounce piece of carbon fiber just so to make a fuzzy yellow ball behave exactly how he wants it to?“Finding that kid who has the athleticism and is a great competitor, and also has the sound foundation you need to have the opportunity to be able to grow, it isn’t easy to get them,” said Kent Kinnear, the director of men’s tennis at the U.S. Tennis Association.Kinnear and his colleagues at the U.S.T.A. are desperate to reap the rewards of an American man of any background winning a Grand Slam singles title for the first time since Andy Roddick won the U.S. Open in 2003. Private tennis coaches look across the parks where they work each day and see the ones that got away.“John McEnroe always said, ‘Can you imagine if Michael Jordan had played tennis?’,” said Bill Adams, who runs the Bill Adams Global Tennis Academy in Miramar, Fla., and worked with a young Naomi Osaka, who is Haitian and Japanese and identifies as a Black woman, a dozen years ago. “He was right.”Sports like tennis and golf are often less accessible to Black children because of the high costs of training and equipment, and because the facilities to practice often aren’t available in the communities where Black children are most likely to live. Black families typically have less wealth than white families because of a history of racist policies related to assets like housing.The U.S.T.A. has tried to set up a system that gives tennis a better chance to attract better athletes and more of them, especially from communities of color. That requires courts and also programs with equipment and high-quality coaching.“So many of the success stories in our sport are happenstance,” said Louis Bolling, a former college player who is a community outreach manager with the U.S.T.A. “I was able to walk down the street, and someone was there to say here is a racket and T-shirt and a program where you can compete and learn.”In Bolling’s program, the color of the T-shirt signified a player’s level. They got a new color as they moved up. Hundreds of kids across Philadelphia participated, and the best traveled across the city for tournaments. Bolling, who is Black, started playing tennis when he was 10 years old because his local baseball league folded, he said. By 15 he was traveling to Morocco to train and compete.Tennis officials wants children to keep playing other sports to help develop their athleticism, but a singular focus on tennis is often required by the early teens.Karsten Moran for The New York TimesThat is the environment that Asha Rolle is trying to create in the South Bronx at the Cary Leeds Center for Tennis and Learning. Rolle, who is Black, grew up in Miami Shores, Fla., two blocks from a park with a tennis set of basketball courts where her brothers played. They told her about the tennis program behind the basketball courts and suggested she try it. Rolle received daily lessons for $20 a week. She ultimately rose to No. 82 in the world rankings. But she doesn’t just want brothers sending their sisters to her — she wants the boys to feel like they should be there, too.“That kind of program is out there, but it’s spotty,” Rolle said.The U.S.T.A. said it works with 250 nonprofit organizations that provide access to tennis for about 160,000 young players each year. The numbers suggest more children are at least giving the sport a try. The U.S.T.A. recently announced that youth participation — defined as playing the sport at least once a year — rose to 6.9 million in 2021, from 4.6 million in 2019. Participation among Black and Hispanic/Latino players grew to 5.5 million from 3.6 million during that time period.Most top players commit when they are very young. Rolle said a boy would probably have to start playing seriously, with solid coaching, by the time he is 8 years old. The U.S.T.A. wants children to keep playing other sports to help develop their athleticism, but a singular focus on the game is often required by the early teens. But coaching techniques and quality varies.Elliott Pettit, senior director of strategic development for the U.S.T.A., said the organization has tried to build a ladder that begins in elementary school by making tennis part of gym class. If a gym teacher agrees to connect with a local community tennis program, the school can receive a free package of equipment for an introductory version of the game — 30 rackets, 36 instructional balls, tape to use as the net and chalk for lines. It can be played in gyms, school hallways and cafeterias.Students at Tiafoe’s home club in Maryland reacted as he played in the U.S. Open on Wednesday.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesDuring the past five years 6,700 schools have participated. In the best case scenario, the gym teacher would point the best and most enthusiastic children to the community tennis center, which then can let the U.S.T.A. regional chapters know about any special talents so they can fund private coaching.But what will make that talented child stick with the sport in a serious way? A star like Tiafoe, if he wins, can go a long way, a burden he is happy to carry.“At the end of the day I love that because of Frances Tiafoe there is a lot of people of color playing tennis,” Tiafoe said Wednesday. “That’s why I’m out here trying pretty hard.” More

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      U.S. Open Semifinals: The 4 Men Left

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      Karsten Moran for The New York TimesCarlos Alcaraz’s quarterfinal match ended at 2:50 a.m. on Thursday. But he’s 19, so he should be ready for Tiafoe on Friday, right?Alcaraz, a Spanish prodigy, has won four tournaments this year and, after starting 2022 ranked 32nd, is No. 4. More

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      Frances Tiafoe vs. Carlos Alcaraz in the U.S. Open Men’s Semifinals: How to Watch

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      Fans will get to see what one of the next great tennis rivalries could look like on Friday at 7 p.m.Those who have been worried about the state of men’s tennis when the likes of Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal are retired have nothing to worry about.The next generation of men’s tennis is here, and fans will get a chance to see what one of the next great rivalries could look like when Frances Tiafoe, the 24-year-old American ranked No. 26, faces Carlos Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spaniard ranked No. 4, in the semifinals of the U.S. Open.The two will play in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday at 7 p.m. Eastern time in what is expected to be a thrilling and intense match.Here’s what you need to know before their semifinal match on Friday:How did Frances Tiafoe and Carlos Alcaraz advance?Through five singles matches, Tiafoe has dropped only one set, which came in the fourth round against Nadal. Tiafoe defeated Marcos Giron of the United States in the first round, then Jason Kubler of Australia, Diego Schwartzman, an Argentine seeded 14th, Nadal and Andrey Rublev, a Russian seeded ninth, in the quarterfinal.Alcaraz arrives at the semifinals after back-to-back marathon five-set matches: He beat Jannik Sinner of Italy in a 5-hour, 15-minute quarterfinal match that ended at nearly 3 a.m. Thursday, and Marin Cilic of Croatia in the fourth round in a match that lasted nearly four hours.Alcaraz defeated Sebastian Baez of Argentina in the first round, Federico Coria of Argentina in the second and Jenson Brooksby of the United States in the third.Want to see the match in the stadium?Get ready to pay up. As of Thursday evening, tickets in the upper levels of Ashe Stadium were available from resellers on Ticketmaster for about $300. Tickets in the middle levels of the stadium were going for anywhere from about $1,000 to nearly $3,000.The best seats in the house? Those are nearly $7,000.Catching the match at home?Tune into ESPN on Friday. (If you’re in Canada, tune into TSN.)If that’s not enough for you, consider preparing yourself a Honey Deuce, the official cocktail of the U.S. Open. (Find the recipe here.)What can we expect?This match will be intense. Tiafoe and Alcaraz both play fierce tennis, and they’re quick up and down the court.Leading up to the U.S. Open, Tiafoe trained on his home court at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md. Komi Oliver Akli, a senior director of player development at the center, said that Tiafoe spent much of his sessions focusing on his fitness. Before Tiafoe beat Nadal in the fourth round, Akli told him to be physical in the match.“Make the match longer; make every point longer,” Akli said he told Tiafoe.Tiafoe won their only previous matchup last year in Barcelona on clay. According to Tipico Sportsbook, Alcaraz is the favorite to win Friday’s match, with -200 odds against +150 for the underdog Tiafoe. More

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      The Audacity of Big Foe

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      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

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      In Maryland, Frances Tiafoe’s Former Home Rallies Behind Him

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      At the junior tennis club in College Park that gave Tiafoe his start and where he still trains, coaches and aspiring players cheer him on, and never stop working.COLLEGE PARK, Md. — At the Junior Tennis Champions Center, Frances Tiafoe, the young American who has barged into the men’s singles semifinals at the U.S. Open by playing fearless, joyful tennis, simply goes by Frances.On Wednesday afternoon, as Tiafoe played his quarterfinal match against Andrey Rublev of Russia, the center’s students, coaches and staff members broke from their regular routines and threw a party for the facility’s most popular alumnus, and a rapidly rising tennis star they know as a friend.On an indoor clay court, sitting on folding chairs — but more often standing in excitement — more than 40 people watched Tiafoe’s match on a large inflatable screen. They hollered and held their breath as Tiafoe overpowered Rublev in straight sets to become the first American man to make the U.S. Open semifinals since 2006, when Andy Roddick lost to Roger Federer in the final.Amid the cheers for Tiafoe’s gargantuan serves and deft drop volleys, no one was far removed from the spirit of the center itself and the hard work it teaches, which got Tiafoe, 24, this far in the Grand Slam tournament. Between sets, at a coach’s urging, players raced to the courts for a few minutes of practice.‘He’s Always Happy on the Court’Komi Oliver Akli, 50, the center’s senior director of player development, trained with Tiafoe before the U.S. Open. “He was on the court every day, trying to put some work in, and he was working so hard,” Akli said.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesKomi Oliver Akli, a senior director of player development at the J.T.C.C. who immigrated to the United States from Togo in 1996, started working at the center in 2000, and met Tiafoe just a few years later when he was 5 years old.From a young age, Akli said he could tell Tiafoe had the skills to go far in professional tennis. “You don’t have to tell him too much stuff,” he said. “You just have to keep it simple for him. He just enjoys himself when he plays. He doesn’t care what it is.”There’s a room inside the facility, next to a fitness center and across the hall from the restrooms, with two desks, a cabinet and a refrigerator. Today, it serves as the offices of the center’s general manager and director of tennis. Until several years ago, the office still had two beds where Tiafoe, his twin brother Franklin, and their father Constant slept when Frances was a boy.Constant, who emigrated from Sierra Leone in the early 1990s, took a construction job on the crew that built the tennis facility, and he stayed on as a maintenance worker after it was completed. His starting salary was $21,000 a year, and the staff allowed him and his twin boys to sleep in the center a few nights a week and use the courts.When they weren’t at J.T.C.C., the twins stayed with their mother, Alphina, who also emigrated from Sierra Leone, but met Constant in the United States. Other relatives lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Hyattsville, just a few miles south of College Park.Since they met, Akli, now 50, said Frances Tiafoe hasn’t changed. “He never gets upset,” Akli said. “Never. He’s always happy on the court, enjoying himself on the court.”The J.T.C.C. is a nonprofit club that is focused on encouraging and supporting players from diverse backgrounds and concentrates on recruiting promising players from its own backyard.“It’s not a typical tennis club,” Joe Wilkerson, a vice president of the center, said. “We’re not a club. We’re not an academy. We’re a hybrid of all those things, plus what we do with community outreach in D.C.”It has 32 indoor and outdoor courts with hard, green clay and red clay surfaces, and offers programs and classes for various skill levels and ages, from beginner adults to children and teenagers aspiring to become the next Serena Williams, Roger Federer or Frances Tiafoe.After beating Rafael Nadal in the fourth round of the U.S. Open on Monday, Tiafoe said in a news conference that “it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” adding that he worked hard for his parents.“I just had a big passion for the game,” he said. “Not even mainly for me, but to do it for them.”Watching Tiafoe defeat Nadal was a special moment for Akli, especially because of the training they did together in College Park leading up to the tournament, Akli said.“He was on the court every day, trying to put some work in, and he was working so hard,” Akli said, adding that Tiafoe was especially focused on his fitness to go far in matches. “He was there with Rafa the whole time.”A U.S. Open Watch Party, With PracticeErin Schaff/The New York Times“He’s very much available to everybody when they’re here,” Joe Wilkerson, a vice president of the tennis center, said of Tiafoe.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAfter Tiafoe took the first set against Rublev in a tiebreaker, Akli called out to the students, “Alright, guys. Let’s go.”The students jumped from their seats, grabbed their gear, and ran toward the facility’s indoor hard courts. Akli told the players to warm up and hit with a partner.“Then we can go back and watch another set,” he said.While the players hit forehands down the lines and cross-court backhands and forehands, Akli would occasionally check his phone, nestled in a basket of tennis balls, for the score of Tiafoe’s match.He was pleased to see Tiafoe tied at 4-4 in the second set, adding that Tiafoe had trained to go deep in sets if necessary. “I like the way he’s holding right now,” Akli said. “He knows his fitness.”Among the players who worked with Akli on Wednesday was Imani Jean, a 16-year-old who trains at the center full time. Imani starts her day at 7:30 a.m. for classes, tennis practice, fitness training, more tennis, and then more classes.Imani, who wants to play tennis at a Division I university before becoming a professional, said that she is inspired knowing she trains on the same courts where Tiafoe practiced and lived.“It definitely reassures me that I can get to that level,” she said.Even on days when he’s not playing in a tournament or training at the facility, Tiafoe’s presence is all around the grounds of the J.T.C.C., with framed pictures from when he was younger and enlarged news articles on the walls of the facility. Inside the lobby hangs a framed letter, with Tiafoe writing what he would have wanted to tell Arthur Ashe, the tennis star who died in 1993, after winning the ATP Ashe Humanitarian Award in 2020.“I know this is not just an award,” Tiafoe wrote. “It is a tremendous honor and a massive responsibility. I am not just that smiley kid on the rise anymore. I know I need to carry the torch and make a difference in the world.”Tiafoe went on to write that he wanted to be an example to younger children and “paint a picture for them that they did not know was possible.”“I want to help them make that a reality,” he wrote. “You showed so many of us the way, and now I want to pay it forward.”‘He Knows Them All By Name’Amari O’Brien, a 16-year-old who trains at the center full time, said she considers Tiafoe to be a friend.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesWilkerson said that when Tiafoe is there, he makes himself open and accessible to the young players.“He knows them all by name,” Wilkerson said. “He’s very much available to everybody when they’re here. It’s probably sometimes to his own fault.”Amari O’Brien, 16, who trains at the center full time, said she considers Tiafoe to be a friend.“It’s just it’s kind of bizarre to think that he trained here,” Amari said, adding that she hopes that she can one day be in the same position as Tiafoe.Amari came to practice at the J.T.C.C. for two weeks in 2019, and earned a scholarship to train full time. Her parents eventually moved to Maryland from Michigan to support her.Wilkerson said that scholarships at the center help make tennis accessible to more people.“That is our ultimate goal,” Wilkerson said. “If a kid shows the promise and the passion and the love and respect for the game, then we will make sure that we can fund them and get them through the program.”It’s not just children and teenagers who come to the center. Charles Abety, 50, who lives in nearby Greenbelt, Md., started taking tennis lessons at the J.T.C.C. about four months ago.“I wanted to have something that I could do that I love,” Abety said while watching Tiafoe’s match, adding that he’s “very much” inspired by Tiafoe.After more training in the afternoon, the players returned to the watch party to see Tiafoe in the third set against Rublev. When Tiafoe won the set and clinched the match, advancing to the semifinals with an ace, the players, coaches, staff members, and parents of players at the center jumped to their feet and clapped.“Let’s go, J.T.C.C.” Akli yelled.But the applause and cheers were brief. The players didn’t stick around for Tiafoe’s post-match remarks on the court. They ran to grab their gear again. It was time to train.Erin Schaff/The New York Times More

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      Frances Tiafoe Reaches US Open Semifinals With Win Over Rublev

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      Tiafoe backed up a win over Rafael Nadal with a quarterfinal victory over Andrey Rublev, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (0), 6-4.There are so many different kinds of pressure that tennis players can exert on their opponents over the course of a match.Blasting massive serve after massive serve. Hitting deep. Hounding the baseline to push the opponent into the back of the court. Rushing the net and standing tall there, unafraid, just 35 feet away. There is even the pressure of the scoreboard that comes with early leads in games, or of the softest drop shots that can land like uppercuts to the gut.An ability to get a crowd of more than 20,000 to raise the decibel count to uncomfortable levels at the crucial moments also helps.Frances Tiafoe, who used all those skills and more in his tight three-set win over Andrey Rublev of Russia on Wednesday, has another tool, too. On hot, sweaty afternoons, when he changes his shirt, he sits bare-chested in his chair for a good bit, the muscles rippling across his back, showing off a physique more befitting a mixed martial arts octagon than a tennis court.To beat him, opponents have to get through that, which can stick in the mind during those critical tests of nerve known as tiebreakers. Tiafoe won, 7-6 (3), 7-6 (0), 6-4, in a match that was so even for so long, except when Tiafoe surged during the tiebreakers, as he has done for 10 days. He has played six tiebreakers in this tournament and has won them all, including a 7-0 gem against Rublev in the second set Wednesday.“Best tiebreaker I will ever play,” Tiafoe said after the match. “Ridiculous.”No American man has won the U.S. Open or any Grand Slam singles title since 2003, when Andy Roddick, who was on hand Wednesday to watch Tiafoe, lifted the trophy in New York. (The N.B.A. star Bradley Beal, a Tiafoe fan and friend who plays for his beloved Washington Wizards, was there, too.)Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesMichelle V. Agins/The New York TimesSam Querrey, a big-serving Californian, plowed into the Wimbledon semifinals in 2017 and John Isner got there in 2018. But even then, those moments felt like the ceilings they turned out to be.This is different. At 24, Tiafoe beat Rafael Nadal on Sunday in a ground-shifting upset that made him the first American born after 1989 to beat Nadal, Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer in a Grand Slam tournament. The win made him the youngest American to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in 16 years.He is fast and fearless, and serves at more than 130 miles per hour in game after game. He is suddenly steady after years of being prone to peaks and valleys in the middle of sets and matches. His hands have always been quick; now they are just as soft as well and able to create the calmest drop volleys off the most furious forehands.And with one last blasted ace, he became a U.S. Open semifinalist, and a figure of hope in a country that has watched its female players perform on the biggest stages in the biggest matches during the last decade and wondered when a man might come along and be able to do the same.Tiafoe will play the winner of Wednesday night’s match between Carlos Alcaraz, the 19-year-old Spanish prodigy who will become the world’s top-ranked player if he wins this tournament, and Jannik Sinner, a 21-year-old Italian seeded 11th.“I hope they play a marathon match,” Tiafoe joked.Many in the game see Sinner vs. Alcaraz as a potential sequel to the Federer-Nadal-Djokovic rivalries that have dominated the men’s game for more than 15 years. Tiafoe would love to play a major role in whatever grand narratives the sport crafts during the next decade.Three years ago at the Australian Open, the only other time he made a Grand Slam quarterfinal, that looked like it might be a possibility. But Tiafoe slumped after that breakthrough, falling out the top 80 in the world rankings.Friends and family in Tiafoe’s box cheering him on.Michelle V. Agins/The New York TimesThen, starting roughly two years ago with the 2020 U.S. Open, a tournament played near the height of the pandemic with no spectators, Tiafoe began a steady climb back into the top 30, and lately had been trying to catch up with the other top Americans around his age, a clique including Taylor Fritz, Reilly Opelka and Tommy Paul with whom he grew up. Sometimes, it’s not speed that matters most, but direction.“Some players have difficulty being really, really talented and not playing the game the way you need to do,” said Wayne Ferreira, a top professional in the 1980s and 1990s who has coached Tiafoe the past two years. “The food intake was terrible and the effort in the practicing and the court wasn’t good enough.”Tiafoe was plenty good enough Wednesday, capping off, for now, a remarkable five days during which he has become the buzz of a tournament that has not lacked for it since the first ball rose into the air.First the fans came for Serena Williams at this U.S. Open to see the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion make one last run. Then they came for Coco Gauff, the 18-year-old heir apparent to Williams. And on Wednesday, they came to Arthur Ashe Stadium for Tiafoe.Many of them may have had little idea of who the no-longer-really-a-kid from Hyattsville, Md., was when the tournament started. Now they surely know him, the child of immigrants from Sierra Leone, who started playing tennis because his father was a janitor at a local tennis club.During matches, his player bench is a complete mess, with rackets and towels everywhere.“Diabolical,” is how he described it. His hotel room is that way, too, he said.He has an innate love for bright lights and know-how for playing before screaming throngs, and a game that is fast becoming as varied and creative as it is an exercise both in pressure of power and the power of pressure. That pressure had Rublev, a gentle soul who burns hot on a tennis court, kicking at balls in the final moments of the two-hour, 36-minute battle.Rublev had played Tiafoe nearly to a draw during the first 100 minutes. Then came the second-set tiebreaker, and Tiafoe played seven of the best points of his career, bullying Rublev to submission.Hiroko Masuike/The New York TimesHe smashed service returns back at Rublev’s feet, feathered two lusty drop volleys, smashed two aces and finished off the sweep with a searing backhand winner he punctuated with what is becoming his signature celebration — a sprint back to his courtside chair.Rublev, seeded ninth, kept fighting hard but was largely finished with Tiafoe in peak form. He cracked for good while serving seven games later, whipping an easy forehand, usually one of the best in the game, into the middle of the net to give Tiafoe a shot to break his serve, then sending a backhand in the middle of the court long with Tiafoe standing at the net just a few feet away.He will be back there Friday, trying to exert all forms of pressure once more. More

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      Frances Tiafoe Has Them Talking About Tennis in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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      Tiafoe, whose parents emigrated from the war-torn country before he was born, is the youngest American man to reach a U.S. Open quarterfinal in 16 years, and he has enough talent for two nations.In the stadiums and sports clubs of Freetown, Sierra Leone, soccer is the favorite topic. But on Tuesday, several hours after Frances Tiafoe, a son of two Sierra Leonean émigrés, beat Rafael Nadal to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open, tennis has nudged itself into the conversation.“Oh, yeah, there is a lot of talk about Tiafoe right now,” Abdulai Kamara, a sports blogger and the owner of the Hereford Sierra Leone Football Academy, said in a telephone interview from Freetown. “We don’t really follow tennis closely here, but now there is some interest. Some people are curious about Frances, and they want to know more.”While the tennis community in the United States is excited that Tiafoe, who was born in Hyattsville, Md., has become the youngest American man to reach the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open in 16 years, some in Sierra Leone are proudly claiming the young tennis star as their own, too.The gregarious and talented Tiafoe, 24, has enough magnetism and dynamic tennis skills for two nations.The Sierraloaded publication referred to “Sierra Leone’s Tiafoe,” in a flash update on the historic win, and Kei Kamara, a soccer star from Sierra Leone playing for Montreal in Major League Soccer, wrote on Twitter, “One of us,” after Tiafoe’s win, calling it a “massive achievement.”Tiafoe’s uplifting story began when his parents — who had not yet met — left Sierra Leone for the United States in the 1990s to escape a civil war. They each moved to the United States and, after they met, settled down in Maryland and had twin boys, Franklin and Frances.The boys’ father, Constant Tiafoe, found work on the construction site for the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md. Constant Tiafoe was so industrious, he was offered the job of the maintenance director of the facility. He was given an office, where sometimes the twins slept, the better to, as they grew big enough to hold rackets, spend time on the courts.They both played, but Frances displayed a unique passion, watching the lessons given to the older boys at the center and mimicking their every move, then hitting balls off walls and serving to ghosts on outer courts until dark.Tiafoe combines speed, power and court savvy.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times“All the stories are true,” said Mark Ein, an entrepreneur and chairman of the Citi Open in Washington, D.C., one of the premier events on the tennis calendar. “Frances was obsessed with tennis.”Ein has known the Tiafoes since the boys were five and has become a friend, adviser and mentor. His own mentor was Ken Brody, an investment banker and tennis enthusiast who built the Junior Tennis Champions Center to enact a vision that Tiafoe might one day fulfill.“Ken used to say, ‘If the Czech Republic can develop champions in a country that size, then we can do it here in D.C.,’” Ein said.It was not long before Frances began to display a unique athletic agility — speed, power and court savvy — combined with a nearly unquenchable thirst for the game. He was paired with Misha Kouznetsov, a junior coach from Russia who pushed and pulled Frances through the early stages of his tennis development, which at times were remarkable.At first, the Tiafoes saw tennis as a vehicle for the boys to secure a university education, which only seemed attainable with a scholarship. Constant left his job at the training center to start his own business, but he ended up working at a carwash while the boys’ mother, Alphina, worked as a nurse. Money was scarce.“It wasn’t anything supposed to be like this,” Tiafoe said Monday after defeating Nadal. “Once we got in the game of tennis, it was like my dad was like, ‘It would be awesome if you guys can use this as a full scholarship to school.’ I mean, we couldn’t afford a university. So, use the game of tennis.”But Tiafoe shone so brilliantly at such an early age, that college was relegated to an afterthought as a lucrative professional career burst into view. When he was 14, in 2012, Frances won the prestigious Petits As tournament in France, around the same time that sports publications got wind of his humble and fortuitous upbringing at the J.T.C.C. The following year, Tiafoe won the Orange Bowl, a top tournament near Miami for the world’s best juniors. He was on his way, it felt.American tennis coaches, administrators, agents and the most knowledgeable fans began to see that Tiafoe might be the next great American player, which for so long had been a searing void in the game.But the development of professional players in today’s game often comes slowly, and Tiafoe has, at times, struggled. He turned professional in 2015, and for the next four years he reached the third round of a major tournament only once, at Wimbledon in 2018.He ended last year ranked No. 38 and is currently No. 26. That will improve after his breakthrough performance in the U.S. Open, no matter what happens Wednesday against the No. 9 seed, Andrey Rublev.Now Tiafoe’s popularity is rising fast, not only among Sierra Leonean soccer stars, but also from basketball megastars, including LeBron James, who congratulated Tiafoe on Twitter.“I mean, that’s my guy,” Tiafoe said of James, one of his sports idols. “To see him post that, I was like, ‘Do I retweet it as soon as he sent it? I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to be cool and act like I didn’t see it and then retweet it three hours later.’”Tiafoe’s career has been defined by high expectations, plateaus, self-analysis and improvement.“There were such huge expectations for him at such an early age,” Ein said. “He achieved so many firsts, and he was considered the future, the hope of American tennis. That’s a lot for a teenager, and he handled it really well. He knows success is not always a straight line, but he also knows that if you are always headed towards true north, you can achieve your goals.”Ein and Tiafoe regularly swat an adage back and forth: that everyone wants to be a star like Beyoncé, but no one wants to put in the work to get there.During one of his plateaus, after the 2018 season, Tiafoe began to hear from people around him that he needed to train more, eat better, study film and improve his preparation — anything that might push him into the top 5 in the world.During the winter, over lunch in Georgetown, Tiafoe explained to Ein what he had been hearing and revealed his response to the well-intentioned pressure.“He told them, ‘Don’t worry,’” Ein recalled, “‘I got this.’ A few days later, he was on his way to Australia, where he reaches the quarterfinals of a Slam for the first time. That’s the Frances Tiafoe story.”Many people in the tennis world also know the story of Tiafoe’s early life in Maryland. But much of his tennis story is still heading north. Some of it is being written at the U.S. Open, and some of it is being written in Sierra Leone, where the legend of Frances Tiafoe is just taking hold. More