– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
NEW YORK — FOE REAL?!? Frances Tiafoe somehow did the unthinkable once again at the US Open.
From two sets down and a game away from defeat in the third, the No. 11 seed stormed all the way back to claim the thriller of this year’s US Open, a 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6 (6) win over fellow American Alex Michelsen in the first men’s quarterfinal match that lasted four hours and 38 minutes inside Arthur Ashe Stadium on Tuesday.
However unthinkable the comeback was, Tiafoe is now in a Grand Slam semifinal for the third time, all at the US Open, where the Maryland native’s best tennis always comes to the fore.
Or is that to the Foe?
“It’s tennis, man. You see a little opening window, you see turning points,” Tiafoe said. “One point and, all of a sudden you’re, four hours later, in a battle just because of one point. Tennis is a unique sport like that.”
The heartbreaking defeat should take nothing away from Michelsen’s performance. Far from being overawed playing in his first Grand Slam quarterfinal, he broke Tiafoe six times in the latter’s first 12 service games, mixing aggressive baseline tennis with perfectly-timed approaches to the net on second-serve points to dominate the first two sets and take control of the third.
Serving for the match at 5-4 in the third, Michelsen blinked for the first time in the whole match as Tiafoe broke at 15, part of a stretch where Frances won 17 of the final 22 points of the set to start the comeback.
Michelsen also took control in the fifth set, winning the first three games of the set before Tiafoe once again roared back by breaking in the fifth game to get the match back on serve. That remained the case until the match tiebreak, when Tiafoe was the sharper of the two and never trailed after he got the minibreak at 3-2.
After match point, Tiafoe cut his celebration short and ran to an emotional Michelsen, as the two shared a long embrace with Michelsen sobbing on Tiafoe’s shoulder.
“I was trying to keep it together, and I didn’t do a good job of doing that,” Michelsen said about the exchange at the net with Tiafoe.
“It’s just Frances. I don’t think anyone else could have made me cry in that moment, to be honest.”
Tiafoe added, “I mean, I really like Alex. I really, really do. And I just wanted to come up there and just dap him up. I didn’t think it was going to be as long as it was, but I understand the moment.”
WHAT IT MEANS:
Tiafoe is now 3-17 in Grand Slam matches when going down two sets, with two of the wins coming this year; He also came back at Roland Garros from two sets down in the third round to defeat Jaime Faria.
While Tiafoe is unstoppable inside Louis Armstrong Stadium (10-0 career, 3-0 this tournament), the energy from there did not transfer onto Arthur Ashe Stadium to start, though it is not the first time that has happened to the Maryland native. In both 2023 and 2024, Tiafoe played fellow Americans in the quarterfinals and semifinals, respectively, and lost both times: Ben Shelton defeated Tiafoe in the US Open quarters in 2023 and Taylor Fritz got the better of Frances in the 2024 semifinal in five sets. Shelton may be Tiafoe’s opponent in this year’s semis.
MATCH POINT:
Instead of “One, two, three, Foe!,” maybe the chant fans should adopt for Tiafoe’s matches going forward should be “Two, Foe, six, eight, who do we appreciate?” Tiafoe has now made the semifinals of the US Open in the last three even years.
Besides a potential matchup with Shelton, there’s also a possibility of Tiafoe facing off with Carlos Alcaraz. That would mean a rematch of their epic five-setter in the 2022 US Open semifinals, which the Spaniard won on the way to his maiden Grand Slam victory.
“I like both guys. It would be great to play both guys,” Tiafoe said about the prospect of playing either Shelton or Alcaraz. “It’s going to be rocking no matter what.”
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Tuesday’s Day 10 action, with photos taken by New York-based photographer Margot Jordan. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are six pictures in total.
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