After Frances Tiafoe loses, American men are out of the French Open
PARIS — Regularly this century, there’s a day in the early stages of the French Open when the American men’s singles players are entirely eliminated. There’s not a ceremony or anything, but there are ample flights departing from Charles de Gaulle. That day came Saturday at this French Open — they’re gone, all 16 of them, after the third round — but it just didn’t look all that hopeless.
Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe — both 25, the highest-ranked Americans at Nos. 8 and 12, the leaders of the fresh American wave of which few Americans seem aware and the last two standing here — had moments that could allow for hope without delusion regarding an event that long has flummoxed their countrymen. That’s even though Fritz did conclude his loss with a mis-hit return off the frame that flew like a drunken bird somewhere wide, and then Fritz turned around to the coaching box with a kind of baffled gesture.
“He’s a top player,” said Francisco Cerundolo, which helps explain Cerundolo tumbling on his back after his 3-6, 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 win as if the round were somewhere well beyond third.
Tiafoe is also a top player, or just about getting there, so a first trip to the third round here had to count as progress, especially given how the Marylander managed to get such an early draw opposite Alexander Zverev, who reached the 2021 and 2022 semifinals here but left the latter in a wheelchair after a gruesome ankle injury from which he is still recovering. The male Americans’ presence here technically ended Sunday because Zverev’s taut 3-6, 7-6 (7-3), 6-1, 7-6 (7-5) win ended at 12:19 a.m. Paris time. Tiafoe walked off looking sorely disappointed after a hug with his friend since age 11.
“[Considering] how bad I was for so many years here, I played well,” he said with a laugh at your everyday 12:56 a.m. news conference. “I played well. For the majority of the match, I felt like I was in control. I felt like I was controlling the rally for the most part. I thought I was a better player for a lot of times.”
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He didn’t sound unrealistic.
No American man has reached the French Open quarterfinals since Andre Agassi in 2003, a sentence that sits around in cobwebs on a shelf and gets brought back out every now and then. None has reached a semifinal since Agassi won the thing in 1999. Four have reached the fourth round, including John Isner thrice and Robby Ginepri twice. This became the fourth year out of five and the sixth year out of eight in which the exodus wrapped up by the third round.
It follows on a terrific Australian Open that saw one American in the semifinals (Tommy Paul), three in the quarterfinals, four in the last 16 and eight in the last 32. That followed on a year-end ranking that had nine Americans in the top 50, the most since 1996, not long after a 17-year span (from 2004 to 2020) when that number ranged between two and five.
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“I think it’s going to be awesome,” No. 50 J.J. Wolf said this year in Australia, “especially when the tournaments go back to the States, having a lot of Americans seeded and a lot of rivalries that I think will be really good to push each other, especially for the American fans, and even for us when we are overseas having guys to train with and push with is really good.” As Paul put it: “Obviously I want to be the best one in the group. Fritz wants to be the best one in the group. Frances want to be the best one in the group. Everyone wants to be the best.”
The 16 who competed here had dwindled to three by Saturday morning. Then they ran into South Americans, whom history has identified as maestros at this place.
Marcos Giron, the Californian former NCAA singles champion ranked 75th these days, saw Nicolas Jarry, the Chilean ranked 35th who had taken out No. 17 Paul in four sets Thursday. On Saturday, Jarry took out Giron, 6-2, 6-3, 6-7 (9-7), 6-3, for his 19th win on clay this year, second only to No. 1 Carlos Alcaraz, so it made sense when Jarry said: “I think I’m very strong mentally, emotionally. That’s the key in this tournament.” That left Fritz and Tiafoe.
Fritz, also a Californian, played again before a rowdy crowd at Court Suzanne Lenglen, just as he had done Thursday when he beat France’s Arthur Rinderknech and wound up using his index finger to instruct the crowd to shush, which it refrained from doing during his on-court interview. His match Saturday against Cerundolo, a power-wielding Argentine whose ranking has soared from 127th to 23rd across the past 17 months, came down to narrow margins. Fritz might rue for a while his set point in the fourth, when he couldn’t handle a 119-mph serve up the middle.
He exited to majority cheers with some jeers that felt like leftovers, and Cerundolo told the crowd, “In Argentina, we grow up [with] everyone playing on clay, so this is like the biggest tournament for us” — a string of words far from true for Americans.
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Then Tiafoe played through dusk and night at Court Philippe Chatrier, where the people kept chanting his name. He toted in his 1-6 record against Zverev, including 0-3 in Grand Slams, but he stuffed the match with brilliance and fight. Several times, Tiafoe was right there near the doorstep to bliss, and he might rue the two times in the fourth set he broke and then got broken right away. The first came after he took a 1-0 lead by staying patient through five break points, and the second came as he served for the set at 5-3.
“The fourth [set], it’s inexcusable for me to lose,” Tiafoe said, noting “a bunch of passes that I don’t miss and am missing. It’s just tough. I should be playing the fifth right now” — around 1 a.m. And he reeled at the thought of his section of the draw, which had opened and offered good daydreams.
Instead, he headed off the clay and toward the grass and hard courts, the last American standing if just by scheduling technicality. “I just want to see those guys win,” he said of his close group of compatriots. “It’s not really about ‘I’m the last American and I take pride.’ I don’t really care. I want to hold the trophy. ... Me, Taylor, Tommy, we’re all playing some great tennis that we’re only going to get better and be in these positions and keep going.”
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