LONDON — Frances Tiafoe’s friends and family hoped to celebrate his feat of reaching the top 10 in the men’s rankings when he traveled home after Wimbledon. But as he faced a small group of reporters a half hour after his third-round defeat at the championships, he was in no mood to even contemplate a smile.
“It’s going to be tough to go home and everyone’s going to be excited to see me, but I’m just not going to want to do anything,” Tiafoe said. “I’ve never really felt like this after a loss. … Usually I rise to occasions and I’m shocked how I performed today. It’s just crazy to me.”
That weight of devastation at losing in straight sets to Grigor Dimitrov 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 is a sign of how far Tiafoe has come over the past couple of years. He cares little about what others think — it’s falling short of his own high hopes that hurts the most.
“I want to win a Slam for me, and I don’t feel any expectation other than it’s a bad performance today,” he said.
Tiafoe called the defeat to Dimitrov “horrible stuff” and said his performance was “very, very depressing.” The match started Saturday and Tiafoe was down two sets to love when rain halted the proceedings. He managed to sleep well considering the circumstances, came out with “better energy” on Sunday but couldn’t hold back Dimitrov.
“I mean, he did a good job,” Tiafoe said. “He outplayed me.”
Eventually the frustration was too much. Tiafoe hadn’t managed to tame Dimitrov’s serve, and whatever strategies he tried, Tiafoe just couldn’t get a foothold in the match. The simmering anger boiled over in the seventh game of the third set. At 0-15 down after sending a backhand long, as he prepared for his next serve, he launched a tennis ball into the skies and out of the court, receiving a code violation for ball abuse in the process. He then dropped serve a couple of minutes later, giving Dimitrov a shot to serve for the match, and hammered his bag four times with his racket during the changeover.
Tiafoe was without a doubt the favorite on court No. 2 — both in ranking and crowd preference — but it just never clicked. It took him 40 seconds or so to go from handshake to leaving the court. No messing around, just desolation and frustration.
But this is a blip,…
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