(Provided by Tennis World USA)
World No 10 Frances Tiafoe didn’t mince words about his Wimbledon third-round defeat to Grigor Dimitrov, describing it as “depressing stuff.” Tiafoe, who recently won his first grass title in Stuttgart and broke into the top-10 for the first time in his career, came to Wimbledon with big expectations.
But his Wimbledon hopes brutally ended in the third round after Dimitrov handed him a 6-2 6-3 6-2 loss. “This was a really bad match. Horrible, horrible stuff. To play this poorly is very depressing, especially at Wimbledon. I genuinely think I am one of the best grass-court players in the world but I didn’t show it at all.
I have to live with that. It will hurt for a very long time. I couldn’t hit the room or make him play. It is tough to digest. I’ve never really felt like this after a loss. I’m shocked by how I performed. I played horrendously and it is unacceptable to get broken that many times on grass,” Tiafoe said.
Tiafoe on the loss to Dimitrov: Tough to understand
For Tiafoe, losing in such a way to Dimitrov was more devastating than the loss itself.
Tiafoe has been playing some of the best tennis of his life this season and he entered the Dimitrov match believing he had a great shot at winning. But then, Tiafoe won a total of seven games.“I am already winning in life so my defeat had nothing to do with expectations.
I couldn’t care less about that. I want to win Slams for me, not for everybody else. It was just a bad performance. It’s tough to understand it, the why of it. I am top 10 in the world and played like I don’t have an ATP point. It was Godawful.
It just hurts, man, and I don’t know how to digest it. I was planning to go home and celebrate being in the top 10. That is going to be tough now. Everyone will be excited to see me and I just won’t want to do anything,” Tiafoe said.
