American Dream: Still Serving Winners

Watching the U.S. Open can be especially challenging because no matter how religiously one reads the New York Post’s Page Six, the television crew is bound to cover myriad celebrities whom a viewer still struggles to recognize. But let’s hope the greatest influencer of all at this year’s event is Mr. Tiafoe, inspiring viewers to continue to chase big dreams with perseverance.

The story begins with America, the beautiful refuge from a violent and unjust world. David Waldstein reports for the

New York Times

:

Tiafoe’s uplifting story began when his parents — who had not yet met — left Sierra Leone for the United States in the 1990s to escape a civil war. They each moved to the United States and, after they met, settled down in Maryland and had twin boys, Franklin and Frances.

The boys’ father, Constant Tiafoe, found work on the construction site for the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Md. Constant Tiafoe was so industrious, he was offered the job of the maintenance director of the facility. He was given an office, where sometimes the twins slept, the better to, as they grew big enough to hold rackets, spend time on the courts.

They both played, but Frances displayed a unique passion, watching the lessons given to the older boys at the center and mimicking their every move, then hitting balls off walls and serving to ghosts on outer courts until dark.

Most of the older boys weren’t spending so much time serving to ghosts and playing evening wall-ball. Consequently, they are not playing professional tennis. This sort of meritocratic justice is one reason so many people prefer watching sports to C-Span.

But it can still take years for effort to earn its just reward. The Journal’s Joshua Robinson reports on the 24-year-old’s long journey to overnight success:

Tiafoe, who had risen to No. 2 in the world junior rankings, has been a professional since he was 16 years old, but had never quite lived up to the hype. His Grand Slam runs usually ended in the first week. He has just one tour-level title to his name. If anything, Tiafoe admits, taking on the role of young American hopeful after so many barren years for U.S. men’s tennis had been too much too soon.

“I wasn’t ready for it,” Tiafoe said. “I wasn’t mature enough for those moments.”

“The Next Great American Tennis Player is a treacherous mantle, and Tiafoe has been on a slow grind,” adds the Journal’s Jason Gay. That all changed on Monday, when our hero shocked the tennis world by defeating the legendary Spaniard Rafael Nadal, winner of 22 major championships.

Mr. Gay writes:

Tiafoe beat Nadal by out-Nadaling him: playing physically, returning hard shots with harder shots, and moving his elder around ruthlessly. He pushed Nadal to the wall, and just when Nadal appeared on the verge of a comeback, he pushed harder. Everything clicked…

When it was over, Tiafoe wept. In his players box was his family, who’d seen his highs and lows and all the lonely spaces in between. Tiafoe buried his face in his hands, revealing a pair of rubber bracelets he wears on his right wrist: one in the colors of the University of Maryland football team, the other with an admonition in capital letters: BELIEVE. WHY NOT ME.

Why not indeed. Andrea Peyser of the New York Post reasonably concludes:

Perhaps nowhere else on this planet can a person’s natural talents combine with his willingness to work like a fiend reap such rewards. Remember this the next time the bash-America crowd tears down the greatest nation on earth.

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”

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Follow James Freeman on Twitter.

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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Best of the Web.)