Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe may be the only male American players in the world top 10 and now safely through to the second round at Wimbledon. But where they came from to get to the top could not have been more dramatically different.
Fritz was the youngest of three boys to Kathy May, a former top-10 player, and Guy Henry Fritz, who also played professional tennis. He grew up in San Diego in California, his tennis future securely mapped out.
Tiafoe’s parents came as immigrants from Sierra Leone to the United States to escape the civil war and settled in Maryland. His father arrived in 1993, his mother joining him three years later in 1996, and Tiafoe was born two years after.
The American’s story, which was featured in episode nine of Netflix’s hit tennis docu-series Break Point, has a definite Hollywood feel. His mother, Alphina, worked two jobs and his father, Frances Sr, was a maintenance worker at a tennis club.
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In 1999, his father began working as a labourer on the construction site that built the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland. When the facility was complete, he was hired as the on-site caretaker and given a spare office to live at the facility.
Tiafoe and his brother Franklin lived with their father at the centre for five days a week for the next 11 years, staying with their mother when she was not working night shifts as a nurse. The boys took advantage of where they lived to start playing tennis regularly.
Not long after, Frances became one of the world’s most promising juniors, winning the prestigious Orange Bowl aged 15. Eventually climbing to junior world number two, Tiafoe broke into the top 100 of the ATP Rankings in 2016 at the age of 18.
Such was his steep rise towards the top, a hashtag was created, #BigFoeOnTheComeUp. In 2018, he became an ATP Tour champion for the first time, and the following January, he cracked the top 30. This week Tiafoe began his first Grand Slam as a member of the top 10 elite club.
“Super emotional. Super emotional for a guy like me with my story and everything,” he said. “[I am] a guy who shouldn’t even really be here doing half the things he’s doing. And now when you say his name, you can say he’s top 10 in the world. So [that is] something that no one can take from you and I’m going to remember that forever. And hopefully, I can ride that for a long time.”
Having won in Stuttgart last month, this week was also the first time that Tiafoe arrived in Wimbledon having won a title on grass. On Wednesday, he opened against China’s Wu Yibing on the off-Broadway No 3 Court.
Just 50 metres from Centre Court, it’s an intimate stage with a capacity of just 2,000 and more open to the wind than the larger, enclosed arenas. Tiafoe had prepared his day for 11am, with rain delaying the start until 12.45pm. The match finally ended sometime after 5apm following two rain delays and a medical time out for Wu in the second set.
They initially played just 20 minutes before the covers were pulled, came back once more after a lengthy break and played for 12 minutes before another heavy spill. Taking the first set 7-6 on a tie-break, Tiafoe served for the first game before Wu then called the trainer and, after an on-court consultation, was led away for further treatment.
“I mean, no, I had no idea what was going on. I was just, I was like, man, this is wild,” said Tiafoe. “Then he, yeah, he told me that his heart was skipping a beat. Having problems with his heart and stuff. Felt like he was collapsing in there. He’s like, ‘I’m gonna try and play.’ Once he said that, I was like, oh, we’re about to have a war. He’s going to start coming out and playing loose, which we did.
“I was happy he felt all right and he was able to finish the match and played a high level. I thought the last two sets was super high level.”
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Winning 7-6(4), 6-3, 6-4, his hopes are to attract more black athletes to take up the game in the US. To super-power that thought, a Grand Slam win or a deep run into the second week would ignite some imaginations. Either way Tiafoe is confident that his game, based around a strong serve and whipping forehand, is moving in the right direction.
“I mean, obviously now, I really feel like I have a shot at it,” he said. “I mean, before I was like I want to do well but that’s like wishful thinking. Now I’m like here to make some noise. It’s all about the big ones, especially when you’re sitting where I’m sitting at now. If I want to keep rising, top five, top three, whatever the case, it’s got to happen here at these events.
“More so, I mean, just Wimbledon and US Open, since I was a young kid is always the two – every Slam is huge significance, obviously, but these two, this one especially. It’s the pinnacle of sport. Wearing all white, the royal box, I mean, it’s absolute scenes here.”
Because of the rain delays Tiafoe will play his second-round match on Thursday.
