Carlos Alcaraz Outlasts Frances Tiafoe to Reach the US Open Final

Nearly every year now, it seems, the U.S. Open becomes a life-changing event.

Last year a British teenager, a few months removed from her high school graduation, showed up in New York for the qualifying tournament in late August. Three weeks later, Emma Raducanu left the city as a Grand Slam champion and global sensation.

This time around, Frances Tiafoe, an electric 24-year-old who has long been filled with unrealized upside, took the journey from virtual unknown to a player who could draw the former first lady Michelle Obama and the actor Jamie Foxx out to watch him.

Tiafoe brought his remarkable story: He is the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone, his father a maintenance worker at a local tennis center, where coaches discovered his little boy hitting balls against a wall. Now Tiafoe was bidding to become the first American man since Andy Roddick to make the U.S. Open final. Already he was the first American man to make the semifinals of this tournament in 16 years.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/09/sports/tennis/carlos-alcaraz-outlasts-frances-tiafoe-to-reach-us-open-final.html