Frances Tiafoe endured a somewhat frustrating season on the ATP Tour, with his focus now turning to 2026.
Tiafoe struggled in 2025 overall, with the American not winning any titles and finishing the season 30th in the ATP rankings.
He’s been in exhibition action following the conclusion of his ATP season, with Tiafoe playing the Kooyong Classic exhibition as well in early 2026.
That appearance from Tiafoe comes just before the Australian Open, the first Grand Slam of the new campaign.
Andy Roddick tells Frances Tiafoe how he can learn from Amanda Anisimova
Ahead of his return to competitive action, Tiafoe has received advice from Andy Roddick, who pointed towards the recent success of WTA star Amanda Anisimova.
Joined by Tiafoe, Roddick said on his Served podcast: “Rewind to a year ago. When she is saying ‘I want to win a major’ we are going, yeah you do. Everyone wants to win a major.
“We are going there is a lot of upside but there is so much work to do. There is so much space from where you’re at and legitimately being a contender every time you enter a tournament.
“Present day. She is a contender in every week that she plays. I think, weirdly, that Amanda is a great test case for Frances.
“We know the upside of Frances is tail end of Grand Slams. He has done it three times. But Amanda is playing semis or finals every week now. She has made the World Tour Finals.
“Frances has not found that cadence yet, where it’s all of a sudden I’m producing this level all year so I’m in Turin.
Do you think Frances Tiafoe is good enough to win a Grand Slam if he fully commits?
“Frances is amazing and he walks into a room and you can’t not like him. That smile is not a fake, put on thing only when he’s saying thank you to Arthur Ashe Stadium.
“But the consistency needs to be less of a heart rate monitor and maybe a little more productively boring. He speaks to it. That’s nothing that he doesn’t know.
“But I think Anisimova is a great someone to point to and say listen, the upside was there. She had been in the semis of a Grand Slam before. Obviously had gone up and down.
“Frances didn’t play for the last two months, there was some mental wear and tear and he needed a reset. She has taken a reset before.
“You look at her and say she has reached a couple of Grand Slam finals and is there every week. After that Wimbledon final she got back to work immediately and put on her hard hat and went in there.”
What is Frances Tiafoe’s Grand Slam record?
Anisimova did indeed take a break from tennis in 2023, having reached the semifinals of the French Open in 2019.
Since returning to the WTA Tour, she’s reached the finals of Wimbledon and the US Open, with both of those runs having arrived this season.
Which American man and woman do you think will go furthest at the Australian Open?
Meanwhile, Tiafoe managed to reach the quarterfinals of the French Open this season, but that’s as far as he went at Grand Slam level.
The American ace has made two US Open semifinals in his career, but it remains to be seen if the world number 30 can ever go any further on the biggest stage.
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