Ferreira gets rising African American star Tiafoe on track
THIS extraordinary denouement of the US Open 2022 has seen the demise of the longest reigning British monarch, Queen Elizabeth, and the dethroning of the most prolific Grand Slam King, Rafa Nadal, in a week synonymous with historic fightbacks, (September 3 and 11).
While there was no fairytale repeat whereby British teenager Emma Raducanu reclaimed the US Open crown to assuage the grief of a nation, there is instead an inspiring teenager, Carlos Alcaraz, taking over the reigns from King Nadal.
The Spaniard epitomises Queen Elizabeth’s WW2 mantra, “Keep calm and carry on … ” to remain focused when defeat seems imminent.
Indeed, when the Alcaraz v Jannik Sinner quarter-final battle appeared all but lost and Alcaraz faced a match point against him in the fourth set, he found an extra gear and Churchillian fortitude and focus to turn the match around and win.
For over five hours fellow tennis players and fans worldwide remained glued to their television screens, way past midnight US time. American teenage star Coco Gauff, beaten that night in her quarters clash by Caroline Garcia and due to catch a plane the following day at 6am, refused to go to bed. “This is worth losing sleep over. These guys are playing unbelievable tennis!” Unbelievable it was.
Suddenly New Yorkers forgot their woes about hitherto favourite, mercurial Nick Kygrios, his blockbuster temper tantrums and the fact he’d so inconveniently and narrowly been beaten by the Russian No 3, Karen Kachenov, whose president is pursuing an equally inconvenient war.
The controlled aggression Alcaraz showed while staring down the barrel of Sinner’s proverbial gun was matched by American Frances Tiafoe, whose rise to semis Slam glory has been almost as meteoric, with a Cinderella twist.
The son of war-torn Sierra Leone immigrants, Tiafoe convinced his father, a then janitor at a Washington tennis club, that he wanted to play this game, come hell or no tennis gear. A benign coach provided a racket to his young protege and the rest is history.
Tiafoe is the first black American to reach the US Open semis since Arthur Ashe in the 60s. But take a bow, former SA No 1 and current coach, Wayne Ferreira.
“I could see immediately that like all youngsters at this stage in their careers, the inability to focus consistently on the business of winning was an issue with Frances.
“We had to get him to throw away the headphones, the earphones, the iphone and all the other distracting technology this generation are addicted to during business hours, which included listening to music during post match treatment, etc.” Clearly as good advice in the quest to prevail as the late Queen Elizabeth’s.
Tiafoe took out some of the biggest scalps in this tournament, not least of all Nadal and ninth seed Andrey Rublev, reduced to tears by a combination of the big serving, seemingly indestructible American and the raucous crowd supporting him. In yet another five-set thriller, Alcaraz’s third consecutive marathon match in his resolute march to the final, the Spaniard overcame the American in their semi to face off against another Teflon top 10 player, Norwegian No 1, Casper Ruud.
What probably has also given Ruud and Alcaraz the edge over Kachenov and Tiafoe is that the former two are fighting not only for their first Major title, but also for the No 1 spot in the Pepperstone ranking. Longer than Daniil Medvedev, if not quite as long as Nadal, may the new king reign.