Earlier today, Frances Tiafoe trailed Jannik Sinner 3-6, 0-3, 15-40 in the semifinals of the Vienna Open. Tiafoe battled hard for holds of serve in the second set, hitting some dazzling shots to stay afloat. Sinner was holding serve easily, but when trying to close out the match at 5-3, his first serve deserted him. Tiafoe broke back, and with Sinner serving at 5-all, the young American entered that rarely-seen god mode.
At 15-all, Sinner bossed Tiafoe around the court with his forehand after a long rally: first crosscourt, then down the line. On the dead run, many feet behind the baseline, Tiafoe somehow came up with a wicked slice backhand with both depth and width that landed near the right sideline. Clearly surprised, Sinner’s almost half-volleyed backhand lacked pace, and Tiafoe pounced on it, crushing an inside-in forehand winner. A point later, Tiafoe feathered a gorgeous half-volley drop shot that clipped the sideline for a winner. The break came soon after, and despite having to battle to hold serve all set, Tiafoe put on a body serve clinic at 6-5 and easily closed out the second set.
The third set was a runaway. Sinner saved a break point in the opening game, then held from love-30 down at 1-3, but Tiafoe was controlling all the proceedings. His groundstrokes, which had been overpowered by Sinner earlier in the match, now had equal heat on them, if not more. Sinner, whose serve was a weakness earlier this year, had been serving spectacularly this tournament, but Tiafoe was all over it, breaking twice in the third. On multiple occasions, Sinner would land a first serve, only to see Tiafoe demolish a return anyway. Down love-30 in the final game, Tiafoe fought back one last time, closing out the match with consecutive aces.
This was a turnaround of incredible proportions; Sinner was the higher-ranked player, was crushing his opponents, and had looked in total control of the match. He hit a couple mind-bending passing shots in the match, drawing smiles and stares of disbelief from Tiafoe. Yet the 49th-ranked American managed to conjure up an even higher level, and did so without slowing: from 3-5 in the second to match’s end, the semifinal was one-way traffic caused by glorious tennis.
Tiafoe even erred on a couple love-30 points on Sinner’s serve in the third set, but his level was so high that the mistakes never seemed like they would lead to a turnaround. Sinner has had a tremendous season and had demolished top-ten-ranked Casper Ruud in the previous round, but he looked helpless at times in the final set, such was Tiafoe’s level. He double-faulted on break point at 5-5 in the second — a huge error — but I don’t think anyone faulted him for it given Tiafoe’s two ridiculous plays earlier in the game.
Tiafoe, whose ranking of 49 tends to undersell what he is capable of — it’s usually his bad days being worse than others’ that gets him in trouble, not his good days falling short — now advances to the final of the Vienna Open, his second final of the year (his first was at the Challenger event in Nottingham, which he won). He’s had an exceptional week, beating Tsitsipas and Diego Schwartzman before the even-more-impressive win over Sinner. The tournament is a big success for him regardless of if he wins the final or not.
I really wish I could end this piece here. Unfortunately, the reaction to Tiafoe’s win has made that an impossibility. Many people on Twitter criticized Tiafoe for his exuberant reactions throughout the match, and a Tennis TV Instagram post commemorating Tiafoe’s win is littered with comments spamming the clown emoji. And it’s more than worth taking a look at these reactions and why they could have occurred, because many of them are truly bizarre.
No one disputes that Tiafoe played to the crowd throughout the match. It happened notably as early as the crucial 0-3 game in the second set, when Sinner unleashed a series of monstrous forehands. Tiafoe chased down a few, but the last one proved a bridge too far, and Tiafoe, unable to reach it, jokingly continued to run until he had disappeared from the TV camera view entirely. He smiled after great points, both ones he lost and won. He faked throwing his racket across the net after a crazy Sinner passing shot. He high-fived people in the crowd. He fell to the ground jokingly after Sinner dispatched a low slice with a good volley. And he yelled in celebration after decisive moments in the match.
After the match, Tiafoe gave this quote:
To be clear: there is nothing wrong with this. Commentators encourage losing players to “get the crowd involved” so often that I think they think the crowd has way more power than it does. People attend tennis matches to be entertained. Crowds typically enjoy being played to. Daniil Medvedev flipped off the crowd at the U.S. Open and they loved him by the end of the tournament anyway, seduced by his octopus-like defense and charming runner-up speech.
And the Vienna crowd loved Tiafoe. The roars were frequent and they were loud. Tiafoe broke no rules by celebrating and reacting in the way he did. Indeed, it’s extremely easy to remember examples of other players doing the same or similar things: Roddick throwing his racket over the net after Federer’s famous smash-off-of-a-smash in Basel, Delpo high-fiving the front row of the crowd on Ashe after winning a great rally in the 2009 U.S. Open final, Nadal and Verdasco smiling after the best point of the 2009 Australian Open semifinal…and practically every professional tennis player under the sun has tried to urge on the crowd with that arm-windmilling motion.
Let’s also look at a point that has sparked some criticism of Tiafoe: with Sinner serving at 2-4, love-15 in the third set. After approaching the net behind a couple powerful forehands, Tiafoe hit a tweener off a low Sinner passing shot, the ball landing just inside the baseline. Tiafoe had to stretch to get back Sinner’s next pass, and despite Sinner having a short forehand lined up with Tiafoe stranded at net, the young American anticipated the down-the-line pass and reflexed a crosscourt volley that struck Sinner in the ribs. Tiafoe celebrated excitedly once again, high-fiving people in the crowd.
Customarily, players hold up a hand in apology after hitting the opponent with a ball. Tiafoe didn’t do this, but the epic nature of the point and the relatively slow speed of the shot with which Sinner was struck made this seem far from an egregious neglect of tennis etiquette. Fernando González once spiked a gigantic forehand putaway right at Radek Stepanek, hitting him in the rear, and in that case his lack of an apology made it clear the ball had done exactly what he had intended. But Tiafoe’s volley? Nope, that was a reflex shot at the end of a frantic point. Far from deserving of clown emojis.
These other examples are important because none of them became the target for criticism as Tiafoe’s reactions and quote did. Even with respect to González’s forehand, this is true — you’ll note that comments under the YouTube video include “he hits absolutely the right person,” “what a legend,” “One of my fav moments,” and “haha!! he was aiming at his groin 😀 gotta love Gonzalez!” With few comments of the 145 in total expressing the sentiment “hm, I don’t love that a player hit a 100+ mph forehand straight at his opponent,” the question why is Tiafoe being criticized? comes to mind.
The above Twitter thread from Xavier Livermon, a professor of Ethnic Studies, Critical Race, and Feminist Studies, illustrates the impossibility of completely separating the criticism of Tiafoe from racism. This is obviously not to say that every criticism of Tiafoe after this match has racial undertones. But an extensive series of clown emojis under a post congratulating Tiafoe for a match in which none of his behavior was unique or wrong sets off some alarm bells.
Disliking when someone plays to the crowd is understandable. It’s a subjective preference. Sinner said after the match that he thought Tiafoe’s reactions were exaggerated, going a bit past the line between celebration and disrespect. I don’t really agree with him, but it’s reasonable to be annoyed by an opponent psyching up the crowd.
What is not reasonable is trashing Tiafoe for his behavior, which, again, was all within the rules of a tennis match and has been echoed by many a player. Some of these comments left on his Instagram account will presumably be seen by Tiafoe, possibly dampening the joy of one of the best wins of his career.
As Xavier’s thread detailed, trying to say that these bouts of criticism have no racial undertones is not genuine. Tiafoe cannot control the fact that he is black. Directing abuse and criticism at Tiafoe because he is black is patently absurd and cruel. The things he could control in his match against Sinner today were spellbinding — unstoppable returns, agile movement around the court, and blinding groundstrokes. In psyching up the crowd, he did nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that bends or breaks the rules of tennis, yet he has become the target of abuse nonetheless. It is horribly unfair.
One can only hope that such reactions to Tiafoe’s play cease to exist in the future, but based on how the legendary Serena Williams has been treated over the years, the omens aren’t good. She is one of the best examples in all of sports of an athlete being scrutinized for their unremarkable flaws while their remarkable play gets ignored. The fact is, some viewers are consciously or unconsciously looking for a reason to criticize a black athlete (and in Serena’s case, a black female athlete). Serena wasn’t the first to be treated this way, and Tiafoe won’t be the last.
Another likely cause of these reactions is Sinner’s popularity, hence many of the comments being in Italian or from fans of Sinner. The latest example of why the words sports are just sports, not the measure of a person or a matter of life and death should be painted on every stadium in existence.
Tiafoe’s brilliant play in Vienna this week shouldn’t be obscured by the reaction to his celebrations, or by the celebrations themselves. To many, he is one of the most dynamic and fun-to-watch players on the ATP. If you don’t agree with that, that’s more than fine.
But to shower his social media in hateful comments because you don’t agree with that is nothing short of unacceptable.