Frances Tiafoe Is Making Tennis Cool
Wimbledon marked a career high for Frances Tiafoe. He went on a run into the second week, reaching the round of 16 for the first time at the historic British tournament. The young American, nicknamed “Big Foe,” plays aggressively, with an unconventional forehand and a big serve—which kept him going until he finally lost to Belgium’s David Goffin in a nail-biter of a match that lasted nearly five hours.
He thrives on the energy of engaged fans—after winning a point in one match, he went over to shake hands with fans in the crowd. As Sports Illustrated’s Jon Wertheim noted, Tiafoe “has a singular ability [to] alchemize the energy and fondness from the crowd in a way that elevates his tennis.”
Playing some of the best tennis of his career, Tiafoe is glad to be back in the States to finish out the summer. “I've been playing some great tennis, honestly. I’ve lost some tough, tight matches this summer, but I'm around my career high. Since Wimbledon, I’ve been winning pretty good matches, beating guys I’m supposed to beat. It's been good,” he tells Town & Country over FaceTime.
The hard court swing between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open—when the men’s tour stops in Atlanta, Washington D.C., Montreal, and Cincinnati—is his favorite part of the year, especially playing in front of American crowds. “I’m used to playing on hard courts, and if things don’t go well, you’re near home,” he says.
Tiafoe’s calling from the locker rooms at the Cincinnati Open, a day after defeating top-seeded Italian Matteo Berrettini in the opening round. Though he loves to win, that’s not his primary objective playing tennis.
“My goal was always to provide and take care of my family,” he says. “When I was younger, my goal was to be number one in the world and do all this stuff, but now it's like, I wanna have a career, and when I'm done, I wanna know everyone's taken care of. Obviously that's gonna be winning the big ones, but that's not the specific goal. I just wanna do the best I can and take care of everyone I'm around. ‘Cause then I would say I succeeded.”
Tiafoe sounds wiser than his 24 years. The 6’2” athlete was born in Maryland, the son of Sierra Leonean immigrants who fled the civil war in their home country. His father, Constant Tiafoe, got a job as a construction worker building the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland. After it was built, Tiafoe Sr. was hired as the on-site custodian, and given a small office to live in at the JTCC—and he brought his twin boys along.
“My dad literally helped build the place,” Tiafoe recalls, “He asked the CEO of [JTCC], ‘Can I have my twins come here to be in a better place for school?’ In the beginning it was good for us to be there, to be in a good environment for school and around different kids while he's working. Then, obviously, we took in tennis, being around it so much.”
Tiafoe and his twin brother, Franklin, were raised at the tennis center, and grew up sharing a massage table for a bed. They quickly gravitated towards the sport they were surrounded by. “We would use our rackets and tap the ball into the wall. We started playing after school programs,” he remembers.
By age 12, he knew he wanted to play tennis professionally—even though his parents wanted him to go to college and get his degree. At age 17, he took an “educated risk,” turned pro, and made his Grand Slam debut. Within three years, he had won his first title. This year, he hit a career-high ranking of 24th in the world, and he's currently the 2nd highest ranked American man—which doesn’t even take into account his deep run at Wimbledon. (Due to the tournament’s ban of Russian and Belarusian players, the men’s and women’s tour stripped Wimbledon of ranking points.)
The “Big Three”—Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer, and Novak Djokovic—have dominated men’s tennis for the last two decades, but their grip on the sport has loosened recently. They are more likely to only play the bigger tournaments, like Grand Slams, and even then, injuries and COVID vaccination policies have left the draw more open than it has typically been. (Djokovic, notably, won’t be at the U.S. Open due to the fact he is unvaccinated.)
“The game is opening up,” Tiafoe explains. “Success is when opportunity meets preparation. Guys are just prepared and ready to take the opportunity that's in front of them. Anybody can win these big events. There hasn’t been guys cemented yet as like, ‘okay, I’m the one [to beat].’ We haven’t had that yet, which is cool. The game needs it—to have tennis fans get used to new faces.”
In American men’s tennis, particularly, Tiafoe is one of many Americans climbing the ranks—alongside the likes of Taylor Fritz, Reilly Opelka, Tommy Paul, and Maxime Cressy. “It’s great, I think it’s what will keep longevity,” he says of his American cohort. “It’s cool to see guys you grew up with playing great tennis, and we're all inside the top 30. Guys are playing well, beating the top guys in the world. Everyone's having a heroic week every week.”
Though the American players don’t necessarily acknowledge it, he says, “everyone's got so much respect for each other. And so happy for each other.”
Tiafoe’s rise in American tennis is all the more remarkable given that the sport, historically, has been unwelcoming toward people of color. It was a sport characterized by its whiteness and its wealth; not one meant for the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone. The Williams sisters were key in helping change that perception of tennis, and Tiafoe is part of a new generation helping evolve it even further. Making tennis more diverse, and more representative, is one of Tiafoe’s goals.
“People don’t understand that tennis is cool, right?” Tiafoe says. “People think of it as this prissy, stuck up [sport], and it's like, no, man! You have guys with a ton of different personalities, and people don't realize how physical it is, and how tough it is, to play great tennis week in and week out.”
He continues, “A lot of NBA and NFL guys I'm friends with, they come watch me play, and they're like, ‘Man, tennis is crazy! Like, I don't know how y'all doing that!’ But I just think people have this image of it—and I think if people get out of that [mindset], I think tennis would get a better [rep].”
Perhaps more eyes will be on tennis this year at the U.S. Open, in part due to the imminent retirement of one of tennis’s biggest players, Serena Williams. Like Williams, Tiafoe thrives on the energy of New York City crowds during the U.S. Open.
“New York—it’s different,” he says with a big smile on his face. “Night on Ashe is so special, I think words can’t describe what playing night on Ashe means to me. It’s the biggest court in tennis, the atmosphere is wild, and it’s for people like me. I really take that in.”
In the last two years, Tiafoe has advanced to the round of 16 at the U.S. Open. Playing in Arthur Ashe Stadium on the marquee court at the U.S. Open is a huge honor for American players—and carries emotional weight, particularly, for Black American players. The stadium is named for Arthur Ashe, the first winner of the men’s U.S. Open in 1968 and the first Black American man to win a Grand Slam tournament. (Althea Gibson became the first Black woman, a decade earlier, at Roland Garros 1956.)
Ashe opened in 1997, and in the 25 years since, Serena Williams has won the U.S. Open on six occasions—her victories have solidified the court as witness to some of the greatest moments in tennis history. Tiafoe is still processing the news of Serena Williams’s retirement; after she announced, he took to his instagram to share that she’ll always be his “big sis.” (Williams has referred to Tiafoe as her “bro” on her Instagram, too.)
“Serena means everything to me. Especially in the Black community and around the world, she's an icon. I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing without her, to be honest with you,” Tiafoe says. “What her and Venus did over the years, playing each other in Grand Slams, everything they overcame in a predominantly white sport and dominating for so many years…” he trails off. “It’s so admirable.”
Tiafoe also knows first-hand her prowess on the court. The pair have been known to practice together, including most recently at the Eastbourne International tournament in June, and Tiafoe has played doubles with both Williams sisters; with Venus at Wimbledon in 2019, and with Serena at the Hopman Cup in Australia earlier that year. “To be able to call [the Williams sisters] friends, not even colleagues—to call them friends, is something truly special,” Tiafoe shares.
Tiafoe is acutely aware of what this U.S. Open means, especially with regard to Williams’s imminent retirement. “The U.S. Open is always gonna be crazy,” Tiafoe says. “It’s just gonna be nuts. Obviously, regardless of the GOAT retiring, in 2021, people were still iffy about doing stuff. The Open was packed last year, but I think now, with COVID pretty much behind us, it’s going to be crazy.” (Ticket prices for the tournament this year surged ahead of Williams’s final matches.)
“And with Serena’s announcement, I think it’s the perfect storm,” he continues. “I just can’t wait.”
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