FRANCES Tiafoe had life obstacles before making his tennis dreams a reality.
Tiafoe’s parents, Constant and Alphina, had to make the decision to flee the civil war in Sierra Leone, Africa and move to the United States in the 1990s.
GettyFrances Tiafoe is ranked No. 10 in the world of tennis[/caption]
GettyTiafoe’s parents fled from Sierra Leone’s civil wars in Africa in the 1990s[/caption]
AFPHe had to sleep in a storeroom at a local tennis club before his US Open dream[/caption]
Frances was born on January 20, 1998, along with his twin brother Franklin, in Maryland.
He grew up in College Park, Maryland as Frances’ father helped build the nearby tennis academy, Junior Tennis Champions Center, as a member of the construction crew.
Constant also had to work as a facility’s maintenance man and would often spend his nights in a back room at the complex.
Frances, meanwhile, slept there at times in the storeroom at the local tennis club.
He’d also sleep on a massage table and his twin brother would sometimes pull out a closet and sleep there.
The Tiafoe brothers lived with their father at the tennis center for five days a week for 11 years.
Frances and his brother began playing tennis regularly at age 4.
At age 8, Mikhail Kouznetsov began coaching Tiafoe at the facility and the rest is history.
In 2017, in the first round of his third US Open, the 19-year-old Frances took legend Roger Federer to five sets.
And in 2019, Tiafoe would be ranked 35th in the world at the age of 21.
Last year, at the US Open, Frances pulled off a stunning upset with his four-set win over the Spanish icon Rafael Nadal.
Tiafoe is now a top-10 player and one of America’s biggest hopes to end the nation’s near 20-year grand slam drought on the men’s side.
Frances credits Kouznetsov for helping him during his childhood when times were rough financially.
“He saw me serving on my own, kind of helped me, we bonded,” Tiafoe told GQ in 2019.
“He helped me for nine years; his wife would take me to tournaments; he paid my entry fees.
“I would stay at his house once, twice a week.
“We had such a great bond.
“If it wasn’t for him, I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today.
“He gave me a tremendous amount of opportunity.”