Charging into his maiden Masters semifinal in Indian Wells reinforces Frances Tiafoe's major dream.
By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Growing up in Maryland, Frances Tiafoe sometimes slept on the floor of the tennis club where his father was head of maintenance.

These days, Tiafoe is taking big strides toward tracking his major dream. 

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Facing the firing line is when Carlos Alcaraz's game is most alive.

Applying his variety, Tiafoe took down 2021 Indian Wells champion Cameron Norrie 6-4, 6-4, to charge into his first Masters 1000 semifinal at the BNP Paribas Open.

The No. 14-seeded Tiafoe ended Norrie's eight-match winning streak and aims to play semifinal streak buster as well.

Daniil Medvedev defeated Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in today's second quarterfinal and rides an 18-match winning streak into his semifinal vs. Tiafoe.

Asserting his speed to attack, Tiafoe won 12 of 15 trips to net and knows he'll need to exploit the frontcourt if he's to upset 2021 US Open champion Medvedev. 

"I'm using my speed a lot more to be aggressive, not just to react to balls and out the corners and stuff," Tiafoe said. "I'm doing that much better now. Using my speed to be aggressive, coming forward much more, sticking volleys, and just being athletic out there.

"It's tough for guys. I'm really coming at you."

Five months after Tiafoe toppled Rafael Nadal en route to his maiden major semifinal at the US Open, he's into his first Masters 1000 final four.

Tiafoe says he's driven by one major goal: "Win a Grand Slam."

"Be No. 1 in the world, great, but if I can walk away from the game, I won a slam, I will sleep totally well at night," Tiafoe said. "No one's gonna tell me shit. I'm gonna be, Oh, I'm a Grand Slam champion. I will be pumped, preferably US Open. Yeah, that's to go. And I'm in semis at Indian Wells, so why not try to win Indian Wells first? Yeah, I mean, I think that's the one thing I want to actually, to win a Grand Slam."

Initially, the burden of being another American Grand Slam hope knocked Tiafoe off track. He concedes day-to-day discipline eluded him in his younger years.

"I'm a guy came from very humble beginnings," said Tiafoe, whose parents emigrated to the United States from Sierra Leone. "I came on the scene, I was 18 years old, 19 years old, in top 100. Guys thinking I'm gonna be the guy to do it, X, Y, and Z, American hope, blah, blah, blah.

"It was tough. I don't think I was really ready for it. You know, I was, you know, a young guy having money, I was enjoying my life, you know, outside activities and stuff like that. Now I just honed it in."

Seeing the Slam progress of young players he grew up facing in juniors and wanting to experience green days of his own inspired Tiafoe, who tapped into his love of the game and for improving.

"I think the main thing was, you know, these guys ahead of me, seeing guys I grew up with, playing juniors with, Andrey, Zverev, Tsitsipas, am I just gonna let these guys take all the money out here for years to come?" Tiafoe said. "Because, I mean, I played these guys and beat them on the odd occasion, but I just wasn't doing these kind of things and winning consistent matches. I was like, All right, I mean, something's gotta give here."

Hiring coach Wayne Ferreira, has helped Tiafoe turn his career around.

When Ferreira started working with Tiafoe he saw a little bit of his younger self in the man from Maryland.

"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 said during the US Open last summer. "That's something he had to really change. He had to really improve the food. Food intake was terrible at the beginning. The effort on the practices and on the court wasn't good enough.

"It's taken time for us to get gradually to where we are today. He still has a few things to improve and do better, but it's been a bit of a struggle."

 

 

 

 

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Rising back to No. 14 in the live rankings, Tiafoe isn't sleeping on his talent anymore.

"I love this game too much to not figure it out. Yeah, hiring Wayne, you know, he's getting a tight team around me," Tiafoe said. "Just holding myself accountable and just having that curiosity of how good I can be at this game.

"You know, I got a, you know, gift from the man above and I just want to see what I can do with this game. I owe it a lot."

Photo credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty

'I saw a taste of the level where No.1 is at physically' says Raducanu after falling to Swiatek
By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday March 15, 2023

Emma Raducanu came to the California desert with very low expectations, not quite feeling 100 percent and certainly not at peak fitness.

Three impressive wins later she found herself across the net from a litmus test the likes of which the WTA has not seen for several years.

World No. 1 Iga Swiatek bullied Raducanu around the court 6-3, 6-1, in slow, heavy conditions on Tuesday night at the BNP Paribas Open. But the Brit leaves the tournament feeling that there are brighter days ahead.

“It feels good. Gives me confidence,” Raducanu said of the big wins she earned over higher-ranked players – 62nd-ranked Danka Kovinic in the first round, 21st-ranked Magda Linette in the second and 13th-ranked Beatriz Haddad Maia in the third. “I think especially because of where I was before this tournament, I didn't think I would even play, to be honest. But to have played and then won three rounds and beaten two amazing opponents, yeah, I'm very proud of myself."

Emma Raducanu & Iga Swiatek at the net after their IW R4 match. pic.twitter.com/UueE0kDhkW

— Jimmie48 Photography (@JJlovesTennis) March 15, 2023

Raducanu could only manage four games against juggernaut Swiatek, but she played well in the beginning of each set and at least came away with the knowledge of how good she would need to be, physically, tactically and execution-wise, to reach that level.

“Now it's just about consistent work to physically get to where I want to be,” she said. “Yeah, I saw a taste of the level where No. 1 is at physically and how she is at the corners, repetitive, relentless. Yeah, I just couldn't take that.”

Raducanu admitted that a rough run of injuries has not allowed her to train the way she needs to. The 20-year-old is looking to remedy that immediately, and spoke of her desire to make her fitness a calling card.

“When I'm telling you I haven't trained, like I haven't trained,” she said with a smile. “Physically I feel like that's going to be one of my biggest assets. My team has spoken about it. I think that I'm going to be, like, one of the best athletes on the tour, and that's going to be a big part of my game.

“I would say there is a very long way to go, but I'm definitely starting the right work now.”

The Greek is setting the bar very low at Indian Wells. By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Wednesday March 8, 2023

Stefanos Tsitsipas is in Californa to play at Indian Wells. Just don’t expect him to make a deep run.

The third-ranked Greek, fresh off his second major final at this year’s Australian Open, told reporters on Wednesday that he’s basically in rehab mode.

“I am still in recovery,” he said. “I won't be pretending or trying to say that I'm the favorite in this tournament or that I have chances of doing well in the next two tournaments because that will be wrong. So I don't see myself as one of the favorites for the next two tournaments.

“I haven't said this a lot of times in my career, but I don’t think I will be capable of going deep, but so far the main priority is getting my body ready and fixed for the clay court swing.

“I am pretty sure it won't be my best performance over the next couple of weeks. The 24-year-old seems to have made the trip to satisfy requirements set up to discourage players from missing Masters 1000 events. “Sometimes, you know you're given difficult tasks and decisions that you need to take and it's difficult to always act the right way,” he said. “There's a factor of you know, I cannot miss a Masters 1000 Even if I really want to, you know the tour is demanding and these tournaments matter a lot. There are certain rules in place for participation and being part of the these events and I made a deal with myself that I will not be skipping the next two events, that I will commit – I just have to do what I have to do and play to the minimum if that's something that is required.

Tsitsipas says he suffered the injury after making some technical changes to his game in the offseason. Those changes, he says, helped him reach his first hard court Grand Slam final in Melbourne, but ended up leaving him at less than 100 percent.

The Greek has not played since Rotterdam, where he lost in the round of 16 to Jannik Sinner.

“It has been a tricky injury,” he said. “There have been a few changes that I did during the preseason, which certainly helped me keep up with the consistency and play better at the Australian Open swing. And I did enjoy myself very much out on the court. Having seen that sort of transformation within my game. And also technically, you may notice in videos now compared to before that my technique might have changed a little bit and that was part of the whole preseason thing that I was referring to earlier.

“And that had a small impact on my shoulder.” It’s hard to imagine what kind of tennis the Greek is going to play when he faces Australia’s Jordan Thompson in the second round, but tennis fans may not want to bet the house on this match.

“It’s a very unfortunate injury at this time of the year because I had a very good, strong start to the year and I consider a Grand Slam final a good result to start the year,” he said, adding:

“It is important to keep faith in the daily procedure to get back healthy. My shoulder, you know, has had a lot of impact in the last couple of years with the constant playing and week to week competition. I just need to take my time and have the right medical team by my side to help me recover to the fullest and not have complications like this again in the future.”