How Frances Tiafoe overcame poverty, mockery & fights with his mother to make it big in tennis: The most inspiring story at US Open 2024
On Friday, September 6, Frances Tiafoe will play the biggest match of his career yet -- the semifinals of the 2024 US Open. In what is his second career Grand Slam semifinal, Tiafoe will be running into a fellow American, Taylor Fritz.
The last time Tiafoe was in the semifinals of the US Open was in 2022 and he was up against Carlos Alcaraz. Despite his best efforts on the night, the American could not beat the eventual champion. This year, his chances of reaching the final are significantly better, and Tiafoe himself will know it.
At the start of the US Open, though, not many would have picked the World No. 20 to reach the semifinals, let alone the final. For starters, the top dog in his side of the draw was Novak Djokovic, 24-time Grand Slam champion and defending champ in New York. As luck would have it, the Serb went out in the third round in unexpected fashion, falling to the unheralded Alexei Popyrin.
But make no mistake: Tiafoe has not made it this far just by riding his luck. The 26-year-old has had to brave more misfortune than most and has had to fight tooth and nail to make it to where he is today.
The son of immigrants from Sierra Leone who ran away from the country to escape the civil war, the former World No. 10's childhood was one of poverty and naysayers. His father Constant worked as a janitor at a tennis center in Maryland, while his mother Alpine worked as a nurse. What Tiafoe's family certainly did not have the money for was tennis equipment and top-level coaching programs to enroll their son in.
Speaking to Nick Kyrgios in a podcast interview recently, Frances Tiafoe revealed that there were times when he had to deal with people mocking him over his hand-me-down clothes and rackets at tournaments he played in as a junior.
Thankfully, his father Constant had his back, reminding him even back then that it was important that he keep going and try to make a career out of tennis despite what everyone around him thought.
"There’s days where it got tough for me, my brother. We’re going to practice, and we’re wearing hand-me-down stuff or demo rackets, whatever you can play with. People are laughing at us, saying, ‘This guy thinks he can be a pro, or this guy is playing with holes in his shoes, whose shoes are those or Pikachu shirts and khaki shorts, and I’m playing tournaments, and they’re like, ‘That’s not even tournament equipment’ and I’m like, ‘This is all I got,'" Frances Tiafoe said.
"Yeah, my dad's definitely one. My dad was always saying, ‘It's not about where he starts but where you going.’ That sentence right there changed my life. He’s just so proud of me," he added.
At the same time, Tiafoe's father working at the tennis center turned out to be the silver lining in all this, as it meant the American had the space to work on his game once everyone else went home at night.
In the interview with Nick Kyrgios, Frances Tiafoe reminisced on occasions when he and his twin brother Franklin were sent packing to spend time with his father while his mom worked the night shift. Even then, Tiafoe fondly recalled, his dad believed wholeheartedly that things would pan out for their family one day.
“2–3 times a week I’ll get picked up from school and my dad is working, and me and my brother would have the ball against the wall, kind of joke around, we’d see the coaches, tell the players some stuff, and we would go to empty court and try to mimic it, like whiff and serves or whatever, but we’re trying to do it," Frances Tiafoe said.
"Then my mom calls us, and she's like, ‘I’m working overnight; you’re going to the tennis center.' So we’re picking up trash, we're lining the clay courts, we’re doing all this, and I always go to my dad, and I’m like, ‘Man, this is crazy.’ He’s like, ‘Look man, this is going to play out one day.’ We’re sitting in the golf cart while he’s sweeping the place, saying, ‘It is going to pan out one day,'" he added.
Interestingly, by his own admission, Tiafoe's mother was not a big fan of him trying out for a career in pro tennis. Speaking in a column he wrote for Players' Tribune back in 2017, the 26-year-old revealed that he and his mom fought over the matter for years, adding that she was not convinced that he should make a career out of the sport even after he started making money.
Instead, Tiafoe's mother hoped that he would go to college. The American did not hold any grudges against his mother's thoughts, going as far as to concede that things could have indeed turned out to be a disaster for him under different circumstances just like she had feared.
"My mom actively did not want me to play professionally. She and I fought about the decision for years, even after I turned pro and started making a little money — all she wanted for me and Franklin was for us to go to college, and I had earned my ticket anywhere I wanted to go," Frances Tiafoe wrote.
"She had a hard time wrapping her head around that. On top of all of that, every kid I played with or against had more than me and would never have to worry about money or whether they’d be able to go to college. While turning pro had a lot of upside, for me, it could also have turned out to be a disaster," he added.
"I knew I had an ability to help my family" - Frances Tiafoe on why he kept persevering in tennis despite his mother's protests
What ultimately kept Frances Tiafoe going in tennis despite his mother's wishes to the contrary was the belief that he had what it took to get out of the financial struggles his family had fallen into.
Speaking in the Players' Tribune column, the American emphasized that he saw tennis as a way out of his circumstances, putting his all into the sport simply because there was more at stake for him than all the rich kids who were playing alongside him.
"I realized early that I could either sit there and be sad about my situation — which I did, plenty of times, wishing I was one of the other kids — or use it as a way out. I knew I had an ability to help my family and my community in a way that my peers at the academy couldn’t. No matter what they ended up doing after tennis, they were going to be fine. For me, there was so much more at stake," Frances Tiafoe wrote.
Tiafoe expanded on that during the interview with Nick Kyrgios as well, recalling how he promised himself that he would take care of everybody in the family by making it big as a tennis player.
"I was like, ‘You know, I’m going to be the guy who is going to change that.’ He’s always chasing dreams; I’m doing this for the greater good, and so then the appreciation came. Anything that came my way, I was very appreciative. So yeah, I mean, then I’m just sitting there sleeping on the massage table with my dad and I’m like, ‘I’m going to be a pro; I’m going to take care of everybody,'" Frances Tiafoe said.
Tiafoe has to win just two more matches to do precisely that, at least make sure that the history books never forget his name. Not since 2009 has there been an American man in the final of a Grand Slam, when Andy Roddick lost to Roger Federer at Wimbledon.
Not since Roddick has an American man won the US Open either, with the former World No. 1 having lifted his first and last Major title at the 2003 edition in New York. Should Tiafoe join Roddick on that list, he will also add a handsome sum of $3.6 million to his purse, enough money perhaps to finally convince his mother that he made the right choice by sticking to tennis.