24-year-old Tiafoe pulled off a top-shelf upset, defeating Rafael Nadal in the fourth round of the US Open to reach his first quarter-finals.
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The last couple of months haven’t been as kind to Rafael Nadal, as the beginning of 2022 was. He won the Australian Open in January and the French Open in June then got to the semifinals at Wimbledon before pulling out of the grass-court tournament due to a torn abdominal muscle.
Well before two months after that terrible injury, the fighter that he is, The King of the clay courts travelled to New York with an adjustment in the toss of serve, making it not as high as before to keep himself from going at it with full swing.
The world no.2 did not face any issues until the third round other than breaking his own nose after his racket slipped, bounced off the court and hit him in the face in the second round.
He defeated his good old opponent Richard Gasquet 6-0, 6-1, 7-5 to extend his Grand Slam winning streak in 2022 to 22-0 and set up a match with world no.22 Francis Tiafoe.
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Tiafoe stuns Rafel Nadal and gets crowned by LeBron James as ‘The Young King’
If the number “2” was any good for the 22-time Grand Slam champion, he’d have won his 4th round game against the young local hero. But as things stand, it seems “2” or “22” worked for American no.2 much better than it did for World no.2.
The youngster has done what he believed in, even though he sounded too bold to hear after he won his game in 3rd round. “Now I believe I can beat him. … I’m definitely going to come after him,” said the 24-year-old Tiafoe, who is from Maryland. And he had a plan.
“Match his intensity from the first point to the last,” Tiafoe said after getting past No. 14 Diego Schwartzman. “You can’t really have any dips. He [Rafa] takes advantage of it.”
Tiafoe didn’t give Nadal much chance who clearly looked like struggling to get any of his power behind his shots and the American stormed to a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory in 3hr 34 min.
The whole country including the NBA community, led by LeBron James is proud of the youngster for beating Rafa and reaching the quarterfinals of one of the most prestigious awards in world Tennis.
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