Frances Tiafoe’s U.S. Open campaign ended in heartbreak on Friday with a 6-4, 6-3, 7-6(7) defeat to Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff on Grandstand. The American, seeded 17th, admitted afterward that he was at a loss both about his performance and about what comes next.
“I don’t know how the rest of my season is going to go. I have no idea,” Tiafoe said. “I see Davis Cup, Laver Cup, Tokyo, other tournaments. I have no idea what the rest of the year looks like. I don’t know what I’ll do, I don’t know how I’ll come up, I don’t know how I’ll play, I don’t know how to recover from this, to be honest with you.”
Tiafoe said the Grandstand played noticeably faster than Arthur Ashe or Louis Armstrong Stadium, and that Struff capitalized. “It was very, very fast today… I was late on everything. It’s going to be hard to swallow how I played today and being out of the U.S. Open this early.”
The loss marks Tiafoe’s earliest exit at Flushing Meadows since 2019. He now owns a 24-11 lifetime record at the U.S. Open, a tournament where he reached the semifinals just two years ago.
