For a guy with freckled-friendly, boyish looks, Wayne Ferreira was a beast of a player.
The South African, who won more than 500 matches during a pro career that spanned from 1989 to 2005 and saw him rise as high as world No. 6, was known for pulling off marquee wins. Case in point: Ferreira posted six victories over 14-time Slam champ Pete Sampras in his prime, including four straight between 1995 and 1998, when the American was in the midst of his record stretch as the year-end No. 1.
Ferreira had a little iron man in him too, having set the all-time mark for the most consecutive Grand Slam appearances in men’s tennis. He played in 56 straight majors, surpassing the previous record of 54 held by Swede Stefan Edberg. He even spearheaded a player revolt, the International Men’s Tennis Association, an ATP-breakaway that aimed at giving the players more say in how the sport was being run.
But Ferreria, now 50, may have found his true calling in his role as a coach, as a mentor to Frances Tiafoe.
His 24-year-old charge has long been pegged as a sure thing; it was just a matter of when it would all come together for the American, whose parents—Frances Sr. and Alphina—emigrated from Sierra Leone (him in 1993, her in 1996), his father a maintenance man at the Junior Tennis Champions Center (JTCC) in College Park, Maryland.
There were hints of a breakthrough—like that time he had Roger Federer on the ropes at the 2017 US Open; when he won his first ATP title in Delray Beach in 2018; when he defeated Grigor Dimitrov on his 21st birthday to reach his maiden Grand Slam quarterfinal at the 2019 Australian Open, the youngest American to reach that stage of a major since Andy Roddick in 2003.
But there always seemed to be something missing, something that kept him from reaching the next level.
“Some players have difficulties being really, really talented and just playing the game without really understanding what it is you need to do,” said Ferreira, who began working with Tiafoe in 2020. “I think I helped him because I played and I went through the issues of being relatively talented and being lazy, and then finding the right team, people behind me pushing me to do the right thing day to day with the food, practicing, and with the fitness and gym work.
“That's something he had to really change. He had to really improve the food. The effort in the practices and on the court wasn't good enough. It's taken time for us to get gradually to where we are today. He still has a few things to improve and do better, but it's been a bit of a struggle.”
His Round-of-16 upset of 22-time Slam titlist Rafael Nadal this week in Flushing Meadows, the kind of career-altering result that Tiafoe calls the “biggest day of my life” and says made him feel “like the world stopped,” might just prove to be that turning point we’ve all been waiting for. Tiafoe would follow with a straight-sets dismantling of Andrey Rublev and will next face the No. 1-seeking 19-year-old Carlos Alcaraz in his maiden Grand Slam semifinal.
“You go through different stages of your life. When I came on the scene, flying up the rankings, everything was kind of good,” Tiafoe said. “I got a bit complacent in 2019. It took me a long time just getting myself together. In general, I just got a good team around me. I started really falling in love with the process, just trying to get better.
“During that time the cameras weren't on me, attention wasn't on me. I was able to just kind of get better and do my own thing. I stopped trying to be ‘the guy.’ I was comfortable with myself. Now, it's all come into fruition.”
As for Ferreira, he says: “It's a great message for anybody, really, that you can end up achieving greatness from where you are coming. Frances has been lucky in some ways of having great help from people along the way. But it's a great story. Hopefully, there will be a movie about it one day. But he has to win the Grand Slam first. You only get movies if you do well.”
