Home favorite Frances Tiafoe escaped an upset after turning the second set around in his favor and then winning the third set against his opponent Daniel Elahi Galan in the Round of 32 on Tuesday at the Washington Open 2024. However, what grabbed eyeballs was the appearance of American rapper Wale, who came to show his support for the US Open 2022 semifinalist during the match.
Tiafoe lost the first set to Galan by 6-7 (8) but immediately went back to the winning ways and won the remaining two sets – 6-3, 6-3. That was an important win for him as it propelled him to defeat Aleksandar Kovacevic in the Round of 16 in a 3-setter as well.
The American youngster will now face the top seed, Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals in what is being touted as the match of the tournament already.
Tiafoe can take heart from the hometown superstar, Wale’s special tweet for him after watching him win.
Thanks for coming my brotha https://t.co/s7CT562qVP
— Frances Tiafoe (@FTiafoe) July 31, 2024
Tiafoe also replied to the ‘Ambition’ singer and thanked him for gracing the court with his appearance. It also showed the nicer side of the American tennis player, who has come under lot of criticism off late for allegedly disrespecting some of his opponents by calling them ‘clowns’ in a Wimbledon 2024 press conference.
But immediately after that, it seemed as if Tiafoe began a new chapter in his career by pushing the eventual champion, Carlos Alcaraz to a 5-set epic in the third round of the Grand Slam.
Although Tiafoe has polarized opinion for skipping the Olympics, he has his reasons for doing so as for him, it is the North American swing and winning the US Open on home soil, which is more important.
So once again, as Tiafoe has lot of expectations to deal with, Wale’s presence in his match will be one of the highlights of the Washington Open 2024. Interestingly, this is not the first time Wale has expressed his intense passion for sports.
Wale is a huge LeBron James fan
In 2011, Wale did an interview with ESPN and back then, he was one of their pundits talking about his city’s ice hockey team, Washington Capitals. He also played American football and ended up as a running back for Robert Morris University.
But when it comes to his favorite players, he had no hesitation in picking LeBron James even back then. Wale believes that he and LeBron came from a similar environment where children took up sports rather than drugs as their ‘hustle’.
“I played sports for about 12-something years. I come from an environment where, for a lot of dudes I grew up with, sports was their hustle. Not drugs, but sports. So it’s an important subject to me.
“I think about what LeBron goes through, a lot. I just think he’s one of the greatest athletes we’re ever going to see in our lifetimes and people still give him a hard time.
“They give him a hard time for things that may or may not even be in his control. He doesn’t get enough compliments for the stuff he does do. I mean, I just feel like the praise doesn’t balance out the negativity.
“When he has a low moment that everybody in every profession from the beginning of time is gonna go through, people jump on him. He might do something charitable, but it’s talked about 1/8 of the time that they talk about a clutch free throw he missed,” Wale was quoted as saying back then.
So Tiafoe can consider himself as one lucky man to have Wale come and cheer for him. The American rapper can perhaps relate to Tiafoe’s struggles as being a person of colored skin who became successful, despite adversities around them. It would be interesting to see if he comes again to watch the tennis star play, in what could decide his fate in the tournament on Thursday.
