In front of a raucous home crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the 22nd seed became the first player to beat Nadal on court at a grand slam this year. It is also the first time since Wimbledon in 2017 that Nadal has lost before the quarter-finals of a grand slam. After Nadal’s final backhand hit the net, Tiafoe was incredulous as he tried to calculate the significance of his achievement. “I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m very happy, I’m almost in tears,” Tiafoe said during his on-court interview. In his press conference Monday night, Tiafoe recounted those feelings. “I told my agent, I felt like the world stopped. I couldn’t hear anything for a minute. Even the shaking [Nadal’s] hand, I don’t even know what I said to him. It was such a blur. I was already tearing up. I could barely see him and my team.” As he bid for a third straight fourth-round appearance at the US Open, and having reached the fourth round of Wimbledon earlier this summer, Tiafoe arrived on the world’s biggest tennis court full of confidence in his ability to pull off a big win. He served brilliantly from the outset, combining aggressive tennis without nervousness with all his typical variety and flair. Even when Nadal leveled the match at one set all and then looked to be cracking as Tiafoe showed nerves late in the third set, Nadal continued to push him. He refused to falter. Tiafoe served out the second set with two gutsy down-the-line forehand winners followed by a no-return serve. After trailing 3-1 in the fourth set, Tiafoe reeled off five straight games, blasting an ace after a tense, tight service game for 4-3, then played the return of his life to grab the win without hesitation. “My legs were like cement,” Tiafoe said of the long 4-3 game. I was like, ‘Just get out of the game, get out of the game,’ and I did.” He will face Andrei Rublev in the quarter-finals after the No. 9 seed defeated Britain’s Cameron Norrie in straight sets earlier on Monday. Tiafoe is the son of immigrants from Sierra Leone and was drawn to tennis after his father was a janitor at a tennis club in Washington. Hype had followed him since he was a teenager, but had to endure adulthood, watching his contemporaries rise above him in the ranks and waiting for him to experience such moments himself. “For a while there, I was like, ‘Geez. You see all these young guys taking on Rafa, Fed, Novak. Will I ever be able to say that I defeated one of them?’ Today I said “No, I’m going to do this”. Well, now, it’s something to say to the children, to the grandchildren, “Yes, I beat Rafa.” I hope I don’t play him again, but I hope to finish with a win.” NBA star LeBron James, Tiafoe’s idol, was among those who paid tribute to Tiafoe’s appearance on Twitter. “CONGRATULATIONS Young King!!! You earned it!” James tweeted along with a video of the moment of victory. “I was losing it in the locker room,” Tiafoe said with a laugh. “I was crazy. “That’s my guy. So to see him post it, I was like, “Do I retweet this as soon as he sent it?” I said, “You know what, I’m going to be cool and act like I haven’t seen it and then retweet it three hours later.” Rafael Nadal bids farewell to the New York crowd after his first Slam loss since the 2021 French Open. Photo: Frey/TPN/Getty Images As he digests a bitter end to a great, complicated year, Nadal dismissed questions about his preparation and an abdominal injury that meant he played just one tournament before the US Open. He said he had trained a lot before the tournament and, for reasons he couldn’t put a finger on, his level dropped once the tournament started. “It’s normal 15 minutes after losing the last slam of the season to feel that everything is dark, everything seems difficult to have the positive energy to look forward,” Nadal said, speaking in Spanish. “But days will pass and I will continue as I have done all my life and I am sure I have the inner strength to do it again.” Nadal will return to Mallorca, where his wife, Mary, is pregnant with their first child. His next scheduled tournament is the Laver Cup in September, but his next appearance will depend on his wife’s pregnancy and when he plans to resume touring. “It’s been a tough few months in every way, that’s the reality. And from there I will start again professionally and, on a personal level, I will end with something important in my life, which is my first child. I believe everything will be fine,” Nadal said. For Tiafoe everything has changed. Before the event, Tiafoe said he was happy to fly under the radar after years of attention and pressure in his youth. “Now that’s over, man,” he said with a smile. “I was thinking about it. Now that’s over. There is no longer a dark horse.”
