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Grading Frances Tiafoe's 2025 ATP Season

Frances Tiafoe's resiliency was overshadowed by deeper problems that led to off-season changes.
Takashi Williams|
Frances Tiafoe at the 2025 French Open.
Frances Tiafoe at the 2025 French Open. | IMAGO / BSR Agency

Before the start of the 2026 season, a new series will review a variety of players' 2025 campaigns and ultimately grade their complete season. These grades will be based on many factors such as prior achievements, injuries, and, of course, what he saw on court.

Frances Tiafoe. Big Foe. The DMV's very own. If you don't know who this guy is, you just don't know tennis. But if you are not aware of what this guy is capable of on a tennis court, then you really don't know tennis.

A two-time US Open semi-finalist with a forehand that makes the ball seemingly pop off his frame and point construction that will leave you scratching your head at how incapable he can make a top player in the sport look. Yet, this past season's results have revealed a major dip in the Americans' form.

Starting 2025 "Down Under"

Coming off a moderately successful 2024 season - a successful North American swing of a US Open semi-final and a Cincinnati Masters 1000 final, along with a 250 Houston finals appearance losing to fellow countryman Ben Shelton in three sets and pushing eventual Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz to five sets - Tiafoe failed to recreate the hard-court success that had saved his prior seasons before.

To start the year off "Down Under," Tiafoe failed to win more than two matches at a tournament until the Houston 250 — more than three months into the season. This was shocking, considering how dangerous a player Tiafoe can be on hard courts.

Yet, he was unable to show his best tennis at the Happy Slam with two grueling back-to-back matches against Arthur Rinderknech and falling to Hungary's Fabian Maroszan.

While I wouldn't say those losses came from a dip in Tiafoe's level, it was more a result of what happens when the tour has a much higher level of parity than we have ever seen. And Tiafoe has even expressed these grievances.

Clay Court Resurgence

Moving into the clay court season, expectations were low. Tiafoe didn't manage to secure any momentum before playing on a surface that is notoriously not his best. But although the trend of early exits continued at Monte Carlo, Barcelona, Rome, and Hamburg, he managed to secure his best-ever Roland Garros performance.

The tennis that Tiafoe was playing on the dirt was earth-shattering. It seemed as though he finally learned how to not only move comfortably on the surface but also use the strengths of his game to his advantage.

And it wasn't like he had an easy draw on his way to the quarterfinals either. He took out Pablo Carreno Busta in the second round, granted not in his prime, but impressively did not drop a set until facing Lorenzo Musetti and losing in four sets in the quarterfinals.

Tiafoe's French Open performance showed me that resiliency is truly one of his biggest strengths. No matter how long a string of bad results may follow him, he is not opposed to showing up at a Grand Slam and absolutely shutting people up.

North American Hard Court Nightmare

Unfortunately, Tiafoe was unable to carry on this momentum into the grass court season, but respectfully, most of his supporters were probably already looking past the latter quarter of the season: the North American hard-court swing.

Over the past few seasons, Tiafoe has made it known that his best tennis will always come out during this period of the tour. All events are on fast hard-court surfaces and back on his own home turf. However, those results somehow did not appear.

Granted, Tiafoe's first hard-court event was the Citi DC Open, where he lost to Shelton in three sets after a unforced error-ridden first-round affair against Alexander Kovacevic before swiftly dispatching Flavio Cobolli in the following round.

A back injury saw him pull out of Cincinnati, and with the US Open in a few weeks' time, it was sad but not surprising that he was not at his best to emulate one of the magical runs he made years before in Flushing Meadows.

Followed by a dismal Davis Cup showing and Asian Swing, a season that once highlighted resiliency ended in unforced error-laden play, revealing deeper issues that the Maryland native has to address. And to be fair, Tiafoe has addressed them so far after cleaning out his coaching staff and signaling to the tennis world that he is ready for that change.

Grade and Final Thoughts: B.

I landed on a B because while this past season was extremely underwhelming, I am still very impressed with Tiafoe's Roland Garros run and understand that injuries held him back in ways that deserve grace. And to be candid, looking at his career holistically, Tiafoe, when playing his best at a consistent level, can win a Grand Slam. Period.

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Takashi Williams
TAKASHI WILLIAMS

Takashi Williams is a journalist and recent graduate of Columbia University. He is passionate about exploring the intersections of sports, race, and politics, and spent the past four years covering 2024 National Champion Michael Zheng as well as the Columbia men’s and women’s tennis teams for the Columbia Daily Spectator. A New York City native, he has also written for The Nation and Hudson River Blue, and completed an award-winning senior thesis examining the presence of misogynoir on the women’s tennis circuit.

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