Frances Tiafoe is the first seed at the 2023 Houston Open and he stayed committed to it despite struggles with the weather.
No tournament chooses the weather for their tournament, although they probably wished they could at the 2023 Houston Open. Due to rain, the second-round action was postponed all the way to Saturday, something extremely rare on the ATP Tour.
However, the first-seeded Tiafoe elected to wait until Saturday and he showed up with his best tennis. First, the American took on former two-time champion from Houston, Steve Johnson.
Tiafoe dominated the match. He made very good use of his serve, hitting 9 aces, and never faced a break point in the match. On the other hand, he had five chances to break his opponent and used three of those to create a comfortable lead in both sets. After an hour and 15 minutes, he won the match 6-2, 6-4, and spoke about how waiting for his first match in Houston for such a long time actually helped him.
“I played a lot better than I thought [I would]. Honestly it kind of helped me in the end to have some days off… It gave me some time to practise on the clay a little bit. I don’t mind chilling around. I can chill all day. I’m a pretty relaxed guy so it didn’t bother me too much.”
Only three hours after he finished his second-round match, Tiafoe was already stepping onto the courts again. This time for a quarterfinal clash with the sixth-seeded Jason Kubler from Australia who beat Daniel Elahi Galan shortly before the American ended his second-round match.
Riding the momentum from the first match on Saturday, Tiafoe delivered a serving masterclass once again and returned even better despite his opponent's powerful serve.
The American had no troubles once again, winning in an hour and 28 minutes 6-4, 6-4 to book the semifinal spot in Houston. Up next, he will take on the winner of the match between the fifth-seeded J.J. Wolf and Gijs Brouwer.
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