COLLEGE PARK, Md. — On a shelf in Ray Benton’s office at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in suburban Washington D.C. are four Frances Tiafoe bobbleheads, each with a different color t-shirt and the words “Trust Your Training” inscribed on them. Benton, a longtime tennis exec and the JTCC’s CEO, makes sure kids get one each time they advance a level in the center’s junior program.
The 24-year-old Tiafoe’s impact can be seen and felt all over the sprawling complex. His father, Constant, who escaped war-torn Sierra Leone in the early 1990s, was on the construction crew that built it. It’s also where Frances and his twin brother Franklin slept on a massage table as young boys in what was then was a glorified janitor’s closet that doubled as a home for the hardworking father and his boys while their mother, Alphina Kamara, who’d emigrated from Sierra Leone a few years after Constant, worked nights as a nurse.
But despite many pros opting for the warmer climes of Florida or California, Tiafoe still calls D.C. home and trains at the JTCC, spending about 10 weeks a year there. He’s comfortable in the surroundings and doing so also allows him to provide up close the kind of inspiration that Serena and Venus Williams once gave him from afar, particularly in a sport that remains largely white and for the privileged. Tiafoe’s big personality extends beyond color barriers, though — whether it’s hitting with Michigan senior Andrew Fenty, the sixth-ranked player in college tennis, incoming Virginia freshman Stefan Regalia and Michigan-bound Cyrus Mahjoob, or helping motivate the next generation, the influence is notable.
“He’s more than a top-20 player in the world to us, he’s a friend and someone we look up to,” says Regalia.
“Getting the bobblehead after each session, seeing my progress, and then seeing Frances’ success at the same time inspires me to keep improving,” adds 9-year-old Caroline Mclean, who has progressed through the center’s training program the last two years.
Winning makes it easy to inspire and Tiafoe did his share of that last season, climbing inside the top 20 in the world for the first time after reaching at least the quarterfinals in eight tournaments, including during a magical two-week run at the U.S. Open, where he knocked off Rafael Nadal and Andrey Rublev before falling in an epic five-set semifinal to eventual champion and current World No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz. In doing so, he became the first American men’s player to reach the final eight in New York since John Isner in 2018 and the youngest to do so since Andy Roddick in 2006. Roddick is also the last U.S. men’s player to win a Grand Slam title. Tiafoe doesn’t want that memorable run at Arthur Ashe to be his zenith. He wants much more, and he’ll try to end the American men’s drought again beginning this week at the Australian Open.
“I had some good wins [last year] but haven’t really backed them up, haven’t really went to that next level of being in semis and finals [of Grand Slams],” Tiafoe told The Post. “I beat a lot of good players [but] winning consistently gives you that confidence.”
It’s only taken a little while for him to get here.
“Frances was a happy kid who always loved being around a tennis court,” Benton told The Post. “I met him when he was about 5 years old. He lived to play tennis, and he smiled when he played.”
But in the early part of his career, Tiafoe was admittedly a little too happy. The story goes like this: After he finished the year in the top 100 in the world for the first time in 2017 — a season that included pushing Roger Federer to five sets in the opening round of the U.S. Open — he remarked how pleased he was with his play. Then someone asked Tiafoe who the hardest workers on tour are and he proceeded to rattle off the names Federer, Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray.
The message sunk in, eventually. According to some around Tiafoe, he had become accustomed to being treated like a star without having yet performed like one.
In 2020, Tiafoe hired Wayne Ferreira as his coach. The gritty, tough-as-nails South African who won 15 titles in a career that saw him reach as high as No. 6 in the world was exactly what Tiafoe needed.
“I think I helped him because I played and I went through the issues of being relatively talented and being lazy, and then finding the right team, people behind me pushing me to do the right thing day to day with the food, practicing, and with the fitness and gym work,” Ferreira told USOpen.org last September. “That’s something he had to really change.”
Those same people around Tiafoe say they have noticed the changes, with the one-time winner going from often joking around or looking at his phone during workouts to taking them more seriously. He’s also visibly leaner, has developed a bigger serve, has improved his court positioning and learned how to stay in points longer.
“[Ferreira’s] impact has been on the mental side more than anything; being locked in, attention to details, being more professional and just getting me to believe in myself,” Tiafoe told The Post, adding that he still needs to be more consistent with his first serve, which was his major downfall in the loss to Alcaraz.
The spoils of his recent success have also led to meeting everyone from LeBron James to Michelle Obama. Tiafoe counts Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley, both of whom grew up in the D.C. area, among his friends.
The Williams sisters have been integral he says as well, Serena in particular.
“The level of respect I have for her is tremendous,” Tiafoe said. “She’s always proud of me and telling me to keep going, do the work and to keep a small crowd [of supporters].”
Two weeks after Serena “evolved” away from tennis at the U.S. Open, Tiafoe was on hand for another legend’s farewell — he and Jack Sock defeated Nadal and Federer at the Laver Cup in what was the final match of Federer’s career. Federer bawling his eyes out afterward will go down as one of the most indelible images in tennis history, a legend whose career was hallmarked by poise and never seeming to sweat suddenly losing all control. Tiafoe had a slightly different feeling that night, though, saying the victory left him “empty” inside.
But Federer’s retirement also leaves him one less player to worry about this week at the Australian Open, which will also be without Alcaraz, who is nursing a hamstring injury. There are still others, including Djokovic, who has won the last three Aussie Opens that he has played in. But Tiafoe says he’s hungrier than he has been in the past and that winning Grand Slams is the goal.
Tiafoe also told The Post that he doesn’t want to be known as just a great tennis player, but rather someone who gives back to his community and stands for something that’s bigger than himself.
“But all that revolves around winning,” he said. “The more you win, the more exposure you get and the more opportunities you have to help other people.”
He’s on his way.
