U.S. Open: Frances Tiafoe, a crowd favorite, advances to the round of 16 after tough five-setter

It may be too much to say that Frances Tiafoe came of age at 2:14 in the morning Saturday on Arthur Ashe Stadium, but he emphatically proved his mettle.

With maybe a 1,000 frenzied fans remaining to back him as only a New York crowd can, Tiafoe celebrated merrily after winning what is likely the biggest match of his life.

The 23-year-old American went five sets and 3 hours, 46 minutes to dispatch the U.S. Open’s fifth seed, Andrey Rublev, 4-6, 6-3, 7-6(6), 4-6, 6-1, playing a dominant fifth set with 14 winners.

"I love these matches. This is why you work. This is why you put the time in, to play the best guys in the world. These are the matches I get up for," Tiafoe said in an on-court interview. "I want these guys. I want to put it on my resumé. I came out today and I was like, 'I'm going to beat him.' I grew up with this guy. I don't fear any of these guys. Let's keep going."

Watching with great interest was Martin Blackman, the USTA’s general manager of player development who has known Tiafoe since he was a boy growing up in Maryland.

"I saw a player who has learned a lot of lessons over the last three or four years," Blackman said. "I saw a player that was very disciplined and very organized. A lot of that I would attribute to having a great team around him; Having Wayne Ferreira [as his coach], a guy who has been there and knows what it feels like and knows what it’s like to go where Frances wants to go.

"I also saw a player who had belief. Just watching him close out the fifth with no lapses in concentration or focus. It was so fun to watch, it was amazing."

Tiafoe’s story touches the heart. He's the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone who took up the game at the Junior Tennis Champions Center in College Park, Maryland. His father helped build the facility as a laborer and then became a maintenance man at the place. Tiafoe became the No. 1 junior in the world and won the prestigious Orange Bowl in 2013 at age 15. But pro success has been slow to come, with flashes of brilliance.

"I knew Frances and his brother and his mother and his dad really well," said Blackman, who was director of the JTCC for four years. "We invited him into what we called our junior champions program for 9- and 10-year-olds when he is was 8 because he was that special. I have a special place for him because I know what his family has been through and what they have had to sacrifice to give him the opportunities."

Blackman also recalls that match on Ashe in 2017 when Tiafoe took the beloved Roger Federer to five sets before losing.

"The crowd loves him," Blackman said. "For folks who are real fans they can think back to that great match against Federer where he lost 6-4 in the fifth and just electrified the crowd. Thinking back to that match now [and] how much he has grown and matured as a person."

Rublev is the second top-five player that Tiafoe has beaten this season. He took out Stefanos Tsitsipas in the first round at Wimbledon and also beat Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish teen who took out Tsitsipas early on Friday at Ashe in a day of upsets. He now takes on tough Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, the 12th seed, in the round of 16 on Sunday which will be the first match on Ashe in the night session.

Blackman thinks Tiafoe, who is ranked 50th, will have a good chance to win that one, based on what he saw against Rublev, in which Tiafoe played to Rublev’s sputtering backhand and punished his second serve.

"No lapses, no deviation from his game plan and I think that’s the biggest signal for him," Blackman said. "For the people who love American tennis, he’s arrived at a place where he can maintain the level of play needed to beat top five players."