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The 19-year-old Alcaraz battled with 24-year-old Tiafoe in the suspenseful match for over four hours, winning after a tie breaking set. Alcaraz will move on to the final match against Casper Ruud of Norway to battle for the championship and the No. 1 world ranking on Sunday, Sept. 11.
In a heartbreaking moment after the match, Tiafoe apologized to the crowd, which saw several notable supporters including Michelle Obama, promising to come back and win the tournament in the future.
"I gave everything I had for the last two weeks. You know, I honestly came here wanting to win the US Open and I feel like I let you guys down. This one really hurts. This one really, really hurts", said Frances Tiafoe in his post match interview.
Tiafoe did not have the start that many of his fellow players did. He was not born to tennis royalty, or sent off to play sports, figuring out which one he wanted to pick. Tiafoe was raised on the court a different way, through his father's job as a custodian at a Maryland tennis club.
Tiafoe's father, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, was the head of maintenance at the Junior Tennis Championships Center, a USTA regional training center in College Park. Through his job, Tiafoe's father was given a spare office to live in at the facility, which sparked the beginning of the tennis star's rise to greatness.
Tiafoe's unique situation helped him grow into one of the nation's best tennis players, rising to the top at a young age. Tiafoe's run in the US Open in 2022 was the farthest an American man had gotten in Men's Singles since Andy Roddick in 2006.
The run also marked the first time a black American man had made the semi-finals, with the last being Arthur Ashe in 1972.
Frances Tiafoe has made history.
Despite his historical run in the US Open, Frances Tiafoe has reportedly pulled out of the upcoming Davis Cup next week in Scotland, reports ESPN.
"I'm going to come back and I'm going to win this", finished Tiafoe.
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