Frances Tiafoe admits he did something ‘unacceptable’ against Ben Shelton which lost him their Washington Open match

This is a head-to-head he will swiftly want to turn around.

Fortunately, he knows exactly what went wrong, branding one moment that lost him the match ‘unacceptable’.

Frances Tiafoe explains why he lost to Ben Shelton at the Washington Open

Entering the media room, naturally, Frances Tiafoe was hardly enamoured, having just exited his home tournament.

That was reflected in his flat press conference, despite still offering his insight into how he conspired to lose to his compatriot. 

Offering his general overview on the match, he began: “Yeah, just passive, man. Missed a backhand cross at 6-5, 30-All that I just never miss. A long point, but still I’m on the defence in that rally, and he hit a quality shot, played a great breaker.

“Then I felt like I was hanging for dear life, hanging for dear life, doubled it at 3-All, miss it, but still long games.

“But ultimately, in that situation, just not aggressive enough. Look, he’s a top player; I’m a top player. The window of opportunity is very small.

“I didn’t take it. I was very, very passive all of a sudden, which, you know, usually I rise to that occasion. You know, I helped him out, and then obviously he’s such a good front-runner, won the first set, opened up his shoulders and played great.

“Kind of unacceptable from my part. Hell of a match I thought tonight.”

Asked to expand on how he felt Ben Shelton’s aggression aided his win, Tiafoe continued: “Well, the court’s really fast. He was going for broke, damn near, I felt. He was hitting balls huge. Serving big first, second, a lot of forehands, driving it as hard as he could.

“On a fast court, it was very, very tough. I felt like I had to kind of dig a lot tonight. But yeah, I mean, he took it to me, and, you know, I didn’t do the best job of adjusting.”

Before this match, Tiafoe admitted he completely disagreed with what he’d been hearing about himself.

Frances Tiafoe’s ranking could be set to take a huge drop

Having lost at the quarter-final stage this year at the Washington Open, Tiafoe is already set to suffer a small rankings drop after being unable to defend last year’s semi-final run.

However, this marks just the beginning of a gruelling North American run, where he also has huge points to defend at Cincinnati, where he also reached the semi-finals last year, and the US Open, again because of his semi-final run in 2024.

Tiafoe has more than enough quality to be able to match these results, but with how patchy his year-to-date has been, it’s hard to see him conjuring up the necessary consistency to suddenly command these results.

He is without a title this year and has only managed to win back-to-back matches at any Masters 1000 event once.

This is undoubtedly Tiafoe’s favourite part of the tour, but it could now turn into a nightmare run that curtails his ranking as the year comes to a close.