NEW YORK—Frances Tiafoe had been the better player for three sets against John Isner. Now, at 5-5 in the third-set tiebreaker, the 18-year-old found himself two points from upsetting the U.S. No. 1 and recording the biggest win of his young career. Tiafoe had just snapped off a crosscourt forehand winner, and as he moved forward to take a floating shot from Isner, he looked poised to do the same from the backhand side. The crowd in the brand-new Grandstand court at Flushing Meadows was poised, too. They had been forced to choose between two Americans in this match, and they had sided with the teenager, chanting his name throughout.
From the start, the College Park, MD., native had responded. In the second game, Tiafoe had ambushed his countryman by reaching up to reflex an Isner overhead back down the line for a winner, bringing the audience to its feet. After that, the speedy Tiafoe was off to the races, both with his feet and his racquet. He timed Isner’s first serves and sent them rocketing back for return winners. He surprised his long-limbed opponent with the raw pace and funky, unorthodox delivery of his ground strokes; Tiafoe’s shots were on Isner’s racquet before he had time to react. After Tiafoe blitzed through the first two sets, 6-3, 6-4, many of us waited for the inevitable collapse in the third, but it didn't come. Isner had found his timing, but Tiafoe had hung tough enough to take it to a tiebreaker.
At 5-5 in the breaker, though, Tiafoe tried to do something different. He tried to do something more. For three sets, he had beaten Isner with pace, without needing to hit the ball close to the lines. He had taken, as Paul Annacone likes to say, “aggressive cuts to conservative targets,” and it had worked. This time, though, Tiafoe did aim the for the line with his backhand. And he missed it.
