Frances Tiafoe, 28, faces fellow American Martin Damm Jr. tonight in his US Open opener, with the match set for around 8:10 p.m. ET as part of Monday's night session at Flushing Meadows, which also features Ben Shelton and Naomi Osaka. Coverage runs in ESPN's primetime window from 7 to 11 p.m. ET, with additional streaming available through ESPN+ and the ESPN app. Tiafoe carries a 36-15 record into the tournament this season.
Tiafoe enters as the No. 11 seed, carrying the weight of being one of the top American hopes at a major that hasn't produced a men's singles champion from the U.S. since 2003. He's no stranger to deep runs in New York specifically — his two career Grand Slam semifinals both came at this tournament, in 2022 and 2024 — which makes his recent form somewhat harder to square.
Tiafoe's path to that level is one of the more unlikely stories in American tennis. Born in Hyattsville, Maryland, to parents who'd fled Sierra Leone's civil war in the 1990s, he grew up largely inside the Junior Tennis Champions Center in nearby College Park, where his father worked his way up from day laborer to head of maintenance and, for a stretch, lived in a back room of the facility with Frances and his twin brother, Franklin, while their mother worked night shifts as a nurse. That building became Tiafoe's introduction to the sport, and it's part of why the DC-area stop on tour carries more weight for him than just another tournament.
Tiafoe actually arrives at Flushing Meadows fresh off a strong showing at the Cincinnati Open, where he reached the final on August 23 before falling short of the title. That run came about a month after a rougher stretch that included an early exit at his hometown event, the DC Open. As BSF covered at the time, Tiafoe fell in the first round to Terence Atmane, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, at Rock Creek Park — a tough result given he'd beaten Atmane in all three of their previous meetings that year. He withdrew from doubles the following day, citing a right wrist injury.
The loss to Atmane snapped what had been a solid summer stretch for Tiafoe, who had reached at least the quarterfinals in four straight events before that result.
At his pre-tournament press conference, Tiafoe was asked about his physical health after a deep run to the Cincinnati final. "I'm all right. I feel pretty good. I'm a vet, as you guys like to say now," he said.
He said the layoff was precautionary. "It was just a quick turnaround, and I had a little kinks there in the finals at Cincinnati, so I wanted to make sure I was fully okay," Tiafoe said. That caution led him to withdraw from mixed doubles at this year's US Open, where he'd been paired with Leylah Fernandez in a first-round matchup against top seeds Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka.
Tiafoe described the underlying issue as a hip strain picked up during a heavy stretch of matches. "I jerked my hip a little bit," he said. "I didn't play that much since Wimbledon, dealing with a wrist injury, and then something else comes up" — a reference back to the same wrist problem that had bothered him at the DC Open. "But I'm gonna be fine come Monday," he said.
Tiafoe was more expansive on how much has changed for him mentally since last year's tournament, where he struggled. "I'm not the same person, not even close," he said. "I wasn't in a good place here last year at all."
He credited a shift in approach for turning his season around. "I wanted to be a guy who showed up every single week. I've won a lot of matches this year," Tiafoe said. "I know what I can do, and I just got to be a pro every day, even on days I don't feel like it. I've had a great new team around me holding me accountable. It's been a really good season, and I'm happy where I'm at."
Asked whether Jannik Sinner's absence from the draw adds pressure on American players to finally break the drought, Tiafoe waved off the idea. "It's the same conversation. Still got to beat seven guys, however way you slice it," he said, noting that top names like Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic are still in the field regardless. "I've lost the last few slams not to any of those guys. My mindset is not really worried about any of those guys — just trying to be the guy in front of me."
Whether tonight's match against Damm Jr. becomes another step toward that mindset paying off or an early setback should start to become clear once play gets underway.
Damm Jr. is a less familiar name to casual fans, but he brings a legitimate pedigree of his own. The 22-year-old lefty, listed at 6-foot-8, is the son of Martin Damm Sr., a former Czech pro who reached No. 42 in singles and won the 2006 US Open men's doubles title. Damm Jr. was a top-three junior before turning pro, cracked the ATP's top 200 last year, and reached a career-high ranking of No. 112 this past May. Tonight is only his second trip through a US Open main draw as a pro, after making his Grand Slam debut here in 2025. His height suggests a big, hard-to-read serve as his central weapon — the kind of game that can trouble a returner for a set or two, even if his overall results are still a level below Tiafoe's.