‘Roger Federer watching you play is definitely nerve-wracking!’ admits ATP star
Frances Tiafoe has discussed the prospect of Roger Federer watching his matches at Wimbledon and revealed he finds it “nerve-wracking” to have the Swiss legend present.
The world No 10 recalled the experience of Federer being courtside for his Laver Cup matches, revealing he thought the 20-time major winner “probably thinks I’m terrible!”
Federer returned to Centre Court for the first time since playing his last career singles match there in 2021 to watch two opening round contests on Tuesday.
The 41-year-old won a men’s record eight Wimbledon titles between 2003 and 2017, before retiring in 2022. He holds an incredible 105-14 record from his 22 appearances at the tournament.
Tiafoe has progressed to the third round of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships with straight-set wins over Wu Yibing and Dominic Stricker.
The 25-year-old admitted the thought of having Federer watching on for one of his matches at the event is unnerving.
“It’s definitely nerve-wracking! [At] a couple of Laver Cups when he was there watching, every ball that I missed I thought, ‘he probably thinks I’m terrible!’ But that’s definitely going to be something,” Tiafoe told Tennis Channel.
“What a legend, and it’s still tough that he’s not playing. He’s such an icon and so good for the sport. He still looks a million bucks in that suit. The funny thing is, he looked like that on the court – he would never sweat.”
The American also spoke about his recent achievement of breaking into the top 10 of the ATP rankings for the first time.
“For a guy like me with the story like I’ve had, it’s huge. Not only for me, but my family, which is who I do it for. It happened on Father’s Day and my dad choked up when I facetimed him. I told him I never thought I’d be in this situation, what he did and my mum and twin brothers,” said Tiafoe.
“It’s super exciting and having them all here to see me play for the first time in the top 10, it means a lot for them. But for me I feel like I really haven’t scratched the surface, I feel like there’s a lot more I can do.”
Tiafoe faced Federer three times, with the Swiss winning all of the pair’s clashes in 2017.
The 25-year-old will play world No 24 Grigor Dimitrov in the third round of Wimbledon on Saturday.
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