Frances Tiafoe earned a hard-fought opening win at Wimbledon and then got very direct when addressing his poor form throughout 2024, saying that he has been "losing to clowns."
Tiafoe, who is seeded at No. 29 at this year's Wimbledon, was very close to getting bounced in the first round at The Championships but survived for another day after staging a 6-7 (5) 2-6 6-1 6-3 6-3 win over world No. 35 Matteo Arnaldi.
Following his win over Arnaldi, Tiafoe improved to a 13-13 record on the main level in 2024. Before coming to Wimbledon, the American beat Yannick Hanfmann before losing to Jack Draper in the Stuttgart quarterfinal and also falling short to Rinky Hijikata in the Queen's first round.
At one point earlier this year, Tiafoe was on a four-match losing streak during the clay season - he lost to Ben Shelton, Pedro Cachin, Federico Coria and Dominik Koepfer during that period.
Also, Tiafoe - who reached a career-high ranking of No. 10 just before last year's Wimbledon - has just twice won back-to-back matches since the start of 2024.
Tiafoe: I was ranked at No. 10, then I started losing to clowns...
Its brutal. Highs and lows. Think about where Im at," Tiafoe said after his opening win at Wimbledon.
Literally this week last year I was 10 in the world and now Im barely seeded here (at Wimbledon). Losing to clowns, I hate to say it but Im just gonna be honest.
I took the game for granted and got a little too comfortable. You stop having fun with it and you find yourself in a weird position. Then you kind of forget what you were doing to win? You start doubting yourself and all these kinds of things."
In his presser, Tiafoe also acknowledged that nothing is always perfect in life and noted that being negative won't help him and that he needs to continue working on figuring out a way out of this situation.
For a place in the Wimbledon third round, Tiafoe plays against Borna Coric.
