The magical run of Frances Tiafoe in the U.S. Open Tennis Championships continued on Wednesday with a straight-set victory over Andrey Rublev in the quarterfinals.
Tiafoe, the No. 22 seed defeated No. 9 seed Rublev 7-6, 7-6, 6-3 to advance to Friday’s semifinals. He became the first American player to advance to the semifinals of the U.S. Open since 2006 when Andrew Roddick accomplished the feat. Tiafoe is also the first African-American player to advance to the U.S. Open semifinals in 50 years. The last player to do that was the late, great Arthur Ashe in 1972. He is also the first American player to make the semifinals of a Grand Slam event since 2018 when John Isner made the Final Four at Wimbledon.
Tiafoe scored one of the tournament’s biggest victories on Monday when he eliminated No. 2 seed Rafael Nadal in the round of 16 to advance to the quarterfinals. He showed no signs of a letdown against Rublev as he won the match without losing a game on serve. He won the first two sets of the match on tiebreakers. He won the second tiebreaker 7-0 to run his string of successful tiebreakers to six in the tournament.
In Friday’s semifinals, Tiafoe will face the winner of the No. 3 seed Carlos Alcaraz vs. No. 11 seed Jannik Sinner match, which is scheduled for late Wednesday night.
