Frances Tiafoe was put to the test in his opening match at the US Open.
And he passed.
Under pressure from New York native Aleksandar Kovacevic, Tiafoe had to fight for a narrow 6-4, 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory in the first round at Louis Armstrong Stadium.
“It got pretty tough at the end,” Tiafoe admitted in a TV interview on the field. “When they closed the roof, it got really humid in there. I was really having trouble breathing. It got better in the middle of the fourth.”
The naturally ventilated roof was closed to cope with the brief rain showers at Flushing Meadows, and Tiafoe had to contend with both the steam and the aggressive play of his Manhattan opponent.
Kovacevic made his US Open debut in his home Grand Slam match and was up to the challenge.
But Tiafoe made it in the end.
Back in the top 20, Tiafoe managed to keep his composure.
He has vowed to win the US Open and is the first American since Andy Roddick to make it to at least the quarterfinals in two consecutive years.
This was a difficult first step on the way to achieving at least three quarters in a row.
Tiafoe seized the opportunity when Kovacevic gave him the slightest chance in the tenth game of the first set: the Prince George’s County (Maryland) native lifted the ball high and hammered an overhead to win the first set.
Then Tiafoe won the second set when Kovacevic hit a long backhand.
In the third set, Kovacevic found his stride.
In the fourth game, he hit a stunning forehand winner right down the line that made the crowd stand up.
But Tiafoe broke in the fourth set to take a 6-5 lead, and after missing his first four match points, he won in the fifth set.
When he dropped into his chair, leaned back and put the towel over his face, it was more a sign of relief than of celebration.
Tiafoe’s career started this year with ups and downs, but last week he reached the final of the Cincinnati Open and made it back into the top 20.
He will next face Alexander Shevchenko of Kazakhstan in the second round of his tenth US Open.
“I’ve been here (for a while). These 10 years are going by really fast. I hope I’m here for another 10 years,” Tiafoe said. “I just remember a little kid with a lot of dreams.”
For Kovacevic, the son of immigrants, it was a good performance.
His mother Milanka is from Bosnia and Herzegovina and his father Milan Kovacevic – who worked at Columbia University – is from Belgrade, Serbia.
Kovacevic grew up on the Upper West Side and began playing at the Central Park Tennis Center at the age of five.
He attended Booker T. Washington Middle School and Beacon High School, where he was demoted to third double as a freshman.
But he trained all over the city, in Harlem and at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre.
At the age of 11, he took part in an open tryout for the John McEnroe Tennis Academy and was selected by McEnroe from a group of 200 students for a full scholarship.
Now playing in the US Open, he was greeted with a standing ovation by the crowd celebrating a local.
