Frances Tiafoe has another short stay at Wimbledon

Washington Post

4 days ago

WIMBLEDON, England — Frances Tiafoe was the latest casualty of whatever is ailing seeded players at the All England Club.
The No. 12 seed from Maryland lost Wednesday to unseeded Brit Cameron Norrie, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 5-7, in front of a friendly crowd, considering the circumstances, on the same show court where his compatriot Coco Gauff lost Tuesday. The second-round loss is Tiafoe's earliest exit at Wimbledon since 2019 and an anticlimactic ending to a fine showing during the European leg of the season, at least on the biggest stages. The 27-year-old reached the quarterfinals of the French Open last month.
He has never advanced past the fourth round at Wimbledon.
'Grass is a tricky surface. The game is getting much deeper,' Tiafoe said, when asked to explain the early-round exodus of highly seeded players. 'You have to think, not so long ago [in 2022] Cam made the semifinals here, and now I'm playing him the second round. … Now a lot of guys you don't even know come out and play, and by the time you know it, you find yourself battling deep in the fourth and fifth.'
That's how it happened for Tiafoe, at least, who led 0-40 on Norrie's serve in the second set, had three opportunities to take a 5-4 lead and give himself the chance to serve for a two-set edge.
Instead, he dumped two routine backhands into the net and flubbed two forehands, sending one long and one wide, from the same area of the court while returning short, crosscourt zingers from Norrie. Though the Brit had been playing from behind, he was far more aggressive and kept Tiafoe on his heels. He sealed the game with an ace, then broke Tiafoe at deuce in the next game to take the set.
'His intensity and belief went much higher, and he played much better. I didn't play as aggressive after that, but he played much better,' Tiafoe said. 'I thought it was a really, really big turning point because if I made one of those shots, he was not going to get to any of them, and I would have been serving for two sets to love up.'
Tiafoe now turns his attention to his favorite part of the season, the U.S. hard-court swing, where he will try to beat his semifinal appearance at last year's U.S. Open.
With his loss, the bleeding at the top seemed to ebb on the men's side for a while. No. 1 seed Carlos Alcaraz took care of business in a tidy, 2-hour 17-minute win over British qualifier Oliver Tarvet in straight sets.
But in the women's draw, last year's runner-up Jasmine Paolini, the fourth seed this year, fell in her second-round matchup against Kamilla Rakhimova to leave just five of the top-10 seeds alive.
Top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka and No. 6 seed Madison Keys breezed through their matches on the women's side — as did unseeded Naomi Osaka, who quietly advanced past Katerina Siniakova, 6-3, 6-2, and into the third round, which she last reached in 2018. The four-time Grand Slam winner did not play at Wimbledon from 2021 to 2023 and bowed out in the second round last year. She plays again Friday as she continues to search for the elite tennis with which she once led the women's tour.