The final time Frances Tiafoe was taking part in a match inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, it was underneath the lights final yr in entrance of a teeming crowd of 23,000, roaring with each level, as he tried to topple Carlos Alcaraz, the eventual U.S. Open champion and No. 1, within the semifinals.
Michelle Obama was sitting within the entrance row of the President’s Box, urging him on inside earshot. There had been N.B.A. gamers within the decrease bowl, together with Bradley Beal, then a star of Tiafoe’s beloved Washington Wizards, in addition to a slew of Tiafoe’s mates and relations fortunate sufficient to land tickets for the largest match an American man had performed on the U.S. Open in years.
On Monday, Tiafoe, a 25-year-old from Maryland who has catapulted himself into a distinct degree of sports activities celeb, skilled one thing a bit of totally different in Ashe Stadium than what transpired a yr in the past. Opening day on the U.S. Open is a chance for tennis followers, even these with a ticket for Ashe, to wander the grounds seeking the up-and-comers, or to absorb a decent four-hour match between middling execs at shut vary.
The consequence is usually a lifeless, half-empty environment within the largest stadium within the sport, particularly for a principally one-sided win like Tiafoe’s 6-2, 7-5, 6-1 drubbing of Learner Tien, a 17-year-old Californian prone to have higher days on the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center sooner or later. From Tiafoe’s perspective, that was good. The solely factor that will have boosted the excitement would have been a match far tighter than Tiafoe, the match’s tenth seed and one its hottest gamers, would have needed.
And but, whereas there might not have been an excessive amount of buzz within the huge stadium, there was loads pulsing by Tiafoe, who is aware of this U.S. Open is way totally different than any he has performed earlier than.
“A bunch of new experiences today,” Tiafoe, a favourite for the primary time on Ashe, mentioned in his news convention after the match.
That dynamic has penalties, each literal and figurative, good and probably complicating, since they’re loaded with reminders of Tiafoe’s new standing.
It was the primary time his workforce bought to sit down within the participant’s field belonging to the favourite, on the west aspect of the court docket, forcing Tiafoe to pivot his head in a distinct course for help. As the favourite, he bought launched to the group and entered the court docket after Tien. That meant he sat within the chair on the left aspect of the chair umpire reasonably than on the correct aspect, farther from the doorway, the place the underdog historically walks to.
Everywhere he appeared, there was a reminder of who he’s now, similar to it has been all week as he moved between sponsor occasions — he has a shiny new Cadillac Escalade in his driveway — and different appearances. And then the tennis started.
“I’ve never played a match before where I was supposed to win on Ashe,” he mentioned.
How Tiafoe handles all this may go a great distance towards figuring out what number of wins he can handle on the match each American man desperately desires to win. This yr marks the twentieth anniversary of the final time it occurred, when Andy Roddick grabbed his lone Grand Slam singles title earlier than the rise of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic.
The expectations are excessive.
“They should be,” mentioned Martin Blackman, the final supervisor for participant improvement on the United States Tennis Association, who has identified Tiafoe since his elementary faculty days.
“It’s a lot,” mentioned Ray Benton, the chief govt of the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md., the place Tiafoe’s unlikely rise to tennis stardom started. Tiafoe’s father, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, was a upkeep man within the early years of J.T.C.C., the place the tennis execs first seen how proficient his younger son was at hitting a tennis ball in opposition to a wall.
Benton was at Tiafoe’s match on Monday and has been involved with him over the summer time.
“He’s a little —” Benton paused and along with his arms imitated somebody who was experiencing the inevitable weight of expectations, the largest of that are these Tiafoe has set for himself. “In some ways all he can do is disappoint.”
As effectively because the season has gone for Tiafoe, together with wins in tournaments in Houston and Stuttgart, Germany, he has fallen in need of his personal targets at crucial occasions. He has misplaced within the third spherical on the yr’s first three Grand Slam tournaments.
He was downright despondent after he performed arguably his worst match of the yr in a three-set loss to Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria at Wimbledon on grass, a floor he loves and that will determine to go well with his aggressive and inventive sport.
At coronary heart, Tiafoe, who burst onto the scene in 2019 when he made the quarterfinals of the Australian Open and rapidly broke into the highest 30, is a showman, an entertainer who likes to play off the vitality of the group. One of the challenges from his earliest years has been determining how to try this most successfully.
A typical Tiafoe sequence occurred Monday throughout a decent second set in opposition to Tien. With the rating knotted at 4-4, Tien rose and twisted and snapped a backhand overhead that appeared like a sure winner. Tiafoe chased it down and threaded the needle along with his shot, zipping it between the umpire’s chair and the web put up to set him up for what appeared like an important break of Tien’s serve. Then he did his trademark frozen stare into the group, his cue for the followers to get loud. They did.
But then he misplaced his personal serve with a sequence of careless errors — a forehand into the web and an overhead vast — permitting Tien an opportunity to attract even within the set as soon as extra. Megan Moulton-Levy, a former professional who’s the final supervisor of participant improvement at J.T.C.C. and has been a mentor to Tiafoe for years, spoke earlier this summer time of her lengthy talks with Tiafoe about cracking the code of entertaining and utilizing the vitality of his ever rising fan base with out burning an excessive amount of vitality or dropping his focus.
“He’s such a social guy,” Moulton-Levy mentioned in an interview earlier this month. “He has this big beautiful personality, so what he has to do is manage how to turn it on and off through the course of a match. He has to figure out when and how to let it show.”
Tiafoe spoke of his seek for steadiness Monday after his win over Tien, of selecting when to fireside up a crowd that may undoubtedly be in his nook throughout this match and that’s coming to Queens particularly to see him, and of when to give attention to the taxing process of profitable best-of-five-set matches.
“I don’t want to gas out in the first set,” he mentioned, noting that it might be vital particularly because the match wore on, and the hype and pleasure and the curiosity of all these A-list names and numerous others among the many Tiafoe devoted took word of one other, he hoped, deep run.
“I have to keep winning so they stay interested,” he mentioned.
Source: www.nytimes.com