Frances Tiafoe has attracted the wrath of furious fans for his recent comments about fellow tennis players.
Tiafoe, a former Top 10 player and one-time US Open semifinalist, made a harsh assessment of his results this year. The American has a negative win-loss record in the current campaign and has failed to string two successive wins at any tournament he has participated in since early April.
Because of that bad spell, he fell from his spot in the Top 20 (16th) to 30th in the last six months. To worsen the situation, Tiafoe sprained his knee in the last few months and suffered from a medial collateral ligament (MCL) injury.
He improved by one spot this week when he started his Wimbledon campaign more positively. Tiafoe recovered from a two-set deficit for the first time in his Grand Slam career to win in five sets against Matteo Arnaldi in the first round.
The victory triggered a moment of self-reflection. Twelve of his 15 defeats came against players ranked lower than him this year. Tiafoe was not pulling any punches when he referred to some of the opponents he lost to as “clowns” during his interview.
“It’s brutal. Highs and lows. Think about where I’m at. Literally, this week last year, I was 10 in the world, and now I’m barely seeded here (at Wimbledon). Losing to clowns, I hate to say it, but I’m just gonna be honest.”
“I took the game for granted and got a little too comfortable. You stop having fun with it and you find yourself in a weird position. Then you kind of forget what you were doing to win?”
Tiafoe got so real that his comments were deemed provocative, and several fans were left raging on social media about his behavior towards his peers. One fan on X retorted, “Losing to clowns, what does that make you?”
Another wrote, “His ranking is showing the result of his tennis so far. He can’t blame them that they played better. He should think of himself what he did wrong. His way of thinking is the reason why he won’t get better.”
One fan opined that Tiafoe needs to improve his off-court behaviour, “He needs to learn some manners. Not just from this comment but from his general behaviour and attitude towards others.”
“He had a really good spell a couple of years ago but has come back down to earth a bit. His game lacks a defining weapon that most top 10 players have. He reached top 10 but wasn’t consistent enough to stay there.”
