Then in the last set he was up once more, and then all even again. Whatever psychic and physical energy that saved, he needed all of it for a battle that had him down, then even, then coasting, then clawed back by an opponent desperate not to cede the stage. Alcaraz skipped practice altogether Thursday, and hit for just 30 minutes before the match Friday. He had played roughly 10 hours of tennis in his previous two matches, which included 10 grueling sets. “Amazing to be able to fight for big things,” Alcaraz said.įrances Tiafoe, 24, matched Alcaraz’s power. Thursday, proved to be too much for Tiafoe, prevailing in five sets, 6-7 (6), 6-3, 6-1, 6-7 (5), 6-3. Alcaraz, who somehow found enough reserves to come back after winning a quarterfinal match that lasted more than five hours and didn’t end until nearly 3 a.m. “I had it in my head.”īut Tiafoe ran into Carlos Alcaraz on Friday night, the 19-year-old sensation from Spain who now seems poised to be the one to have his life changed by the U.S. “I wanted to be here on Sunday holding the cup,” Tiafoe said. Already he was the first American man to make the semifinals of this tournament in 16 years.Īnother two wins would have been ground-shifting for the sport in America, akin to Serena Williams’s first Grand Slam title at this tournament 23 years ago, and coming a little more than a week after Williams played what was likely her last match in Arthur Ashe Stadium, in front of a screaming throng of nearly 24,000 fans. Now Tiafoe was bidding to become the first American man since Andy Roddick to make the U.S. Tiafoe brought his remarkable story: He is the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone, his father a maintenance worker at a local tennis center, where coaches discovered his little boy hitting balls against a wall. This time around, Frances Tiafoe, an electric 24-year-old who has long been filled with unrealized upside, took the journey from virtual unknown to a player who could draw the former first lady Michelle Obama and the actor Jamie Foxx out to watch him.
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