Frances Tiafoe Reaches US Open Semi-Finals and Lives Her Best Life

Frances Tiafoe is back within the US Open semis. I’m impressed. It is an incredible achievement to win five matches on the US Open against one of the best players on the earth. Many consider Tiafoe must have won the semi against Californian Taylor Fritz, who jogs my memory of the highschool movie star/bully that this nerd has to walk past. Beating him would make me completely happy, but more importantly, it could give Tiafoe her first Grand Slam final.

Tiafoe is all heart, passion, determination, strength and perseverance. He has develop into an influence player with a robust serve that has develop into a weapon of brute force. But he can be lightning fast on the court, which makes him a terrific defensive player – there is sort of no ball that Tiafoe cannot reach, which makes him very frustrating to play against. So a lot of his points start with a groundstroke exchange, but end with him running to a ball that seems far-off and conjuring to win the purpose. And he’s equally at home on the baseline and at the web, something that many modern players cannot say.

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He thrives on the court named for Arthur Ashe, the primary black tennis star, but Tiafoe is nothing like him as a player. They are each lovely people, but on the court Ashe was graceful and balletic, and an introvert who didn’t interact with the gang. Tiafoe is an extrovert who talks to the gang and feeds off of their energy. He makes his US Open matches feel like home games for team sports athletes. Tiafoe is like Jimmy Connors, a passionate, emotional warrior who played to the gang and loved the energy of battling the US Open with a stadium stuffed with rabid tennis fans.

One of a very powerful things I see in Tiafoe is that he is robust enough to last a protracted time there. If he were a automotive, he could be an old Ford that might never break down. He is robust enough to be so resilient that his speed and stamina are still there within the second, third and fourth hours of his match. He can even stay deeply focused for for much longer than most players. It is simple to say to simply stay focused, but in a two or three hour match it is simple to lose focus for a moment; your mind desires to wander, and then you definitely miss a shot or two and lose a critical point. Against great players, an inch of space is enough.

On Friday, within the semifinals, and possibly Sunday, within the finals, we’ll be rooting for Tiafoe because he’s black — we all the time root for all black people (except Candace Owens). Also because he’s American. (You just got done rooting for America on the Olympics; it’s mainly the identical thing. Save your criticism of America as a racist nation for an additional time.) But also because this man got here out of nowhere. He is the kid of immigrants from Sierra Leone. who learned to play on the club where his father was the top of the upkeep department. He has earned over $11 million on the pitch and ceaselessly modified the trajectory of his family. This amount doesn’t include the million dollars he earned reaching the semifinals of the US Open. If he wins on Friday and Sunday, he’ll add one other $3.6 million to his bankroll. Tiafoe began at the underside, and now he’s here, near the highest of skilled tennis, living his best life.