While the thrill of his victory was no doubt justified, the 20-year-old wild card was also gassed following a breakthrough week — one that kept placing the physical and mental bar ever higher for Tiafoe as he advanced through the draw. That spread-eagle moment probably gave him a brief moment of reprieve as well.
“I had lots of tough matches, lots of late nights and some trouble sleeping,” Tiafoe said in his on-court interview, shortly after picking himself up and strolling over to share his joy with his support team.
Frances Tiafoe, 20, of the U.S. clinched his first ATP title at the Delray Beach Open, becoming the youngest American to win a title since Andy Roddick’s 2002 trophy at age 19.Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman beat Spain’s Fernando Verdasco 6-2, 6-4 on Sunday to win the Rio Open for his second career title. Schwartzman will enter the top 20 in the world for the first time Monday.
Tiafoe also cut short speculation about his immediate future. “I’m not thinking about the rest of the year; I just want to get some sleep.”
But Tiafoe perked up at that event, achieving the first ATP quarterfinal of his career. He then arrived in Delray just a day before his first match, against Matthew Ebden, who had easily handled Tiafoe in his debut match earlier this year in Brisbane.
Tiafoe, Â @FTiafoe , evened that score, then went on to take out a string of quality opponents. If it seemed that No. 64 Gojowczyk was low-hanging fruit in the final, it was only because Tiafoe had already swept most of the blue-chip contenders off the board. First it was Juan Martin de Potro, then two of Tiafoe’s more successful #NextGen rivals, Hyeon Chung and Denis Shapovalov.
“Look at the variety of guys he beat,” Tennis Channel commentator Paul Annacone said. “When a guy gets through despite rain delays, against a diversity of opponents, playing his first day match, you have to admire his composure. They threw a lot at Tiafoe this week.”
Martin Blackman, general manager for USTA player development, was deeply impressed by the performance of the emerging star.
Frances Tiafoe became the youngest American to win an ATP World Tour title since 19-year-old Andy Roddick at the 2002 Houston event.Â
Maturity and stamina are one thing, winning the battle of the stat sheet quite another. Against Shapovalov, Tiafoe won 84 percent of his first-serve points while converting 70 percent of those first serves. Easily as important, Tiafoe won 35 percent of his return points (compared with just 23 by Shapovalov).
Gojowczyk had been rough on Tiafoe’s fellow Americans in Delray, taking out (in order) John Isner, promising fellow 20-year-old Reilly Opelka and Steve Johnson.
“He beat almost all the American guys,” Tiafoe quipped. “I’m happy I stopped him.”
Jared Donaldson and Taylor Fritz also fell in Delray. With a lot of tennis still to come on U.S. soil, the future for the American game is looking a lot brighter than it did early in 2018.
You can thank Frances Tiafoe for that.
Frances Tiafoe is an American tennis player. He won his first ATP title at the 2018 Delray Beach Open, and is widely regarded as a great prospect to become one of the next tennis stars for the United States.
At 15 years old, Tiafoe became the youngest boys’ singles champion in Orange Bowl history. At 17, he earned a wild card to play in the main draw of the French Open, becoming the youngest American to participate in the draw since Michael Chang in 1989. As a teenager, he has also won the US Junior National Championship and enjoyed success on the ATP Challenger Tour with 9 finals and 4 titles.
Tiafoe was born on January 20, 1998 along with his twin brother Franklin in Maryland to Constant and Alphina Tiafoe (née Kamara), immigrants from Sierra Leone. His father emigrated to the United States in 1993, while his mother joined him in 1996 to escape the civil war in their home country. In 1999, Tiafoe’s father began working as a day laborer on a construction crew that built the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland. When the facility was completed, he was hired as the on-site custodian and given a spare office to live in at the center. Frances and Franklin would live with their father at the center for five days a week for the next 11 years, and took advantage of their unique living situation to start playing tennis regularly from the age of 4. They would stay with their mother when she was not working night shifts as a nurse.
When Frances and his brother were 5 years old, their father arranged for them to begin training at the JTCC, bypassing their usual fees. At the age of 8, Misha Kouznetsov began coaching Frances at the center, taking interest in him after seeing his work ethic and interest in the sport. Kouznetsov would help sponsor Tiafoe to play at tournaments as he progressed through the juniors at a young age. He continued to coach Frances for nine years until Tiafoe moved to the USTA National Training Center in Boca Raton, Florida to train with more experienced coaches.
Tiafoe’s brother Franklin played high school tennis at DeMatha Catholic High School, and is currently playing college tennis at Salisbury University in Maryland.
Juan Martin del Potro was one of Tiafoe’s biggest tennis idols growing up, in part because the Argentine was the first pro to sign a tennis ball for him.
