Frances Tiafoe apologized on Tuesday, hours after he went off on an F-bomb tirade on a chair umpire following a loss to Roman Safiullin at the Rolex Shanghai Masters in China.
Tiafoe lost to Safiullin in three sets 5-7, 7-5, 7-6(5) in their third-round match. The 26-year-old American was livid following his defeat and took out his anger on Jimmy Pinoargote, who had called a time violation on Tiafoe during the tiebreak.
Tiafoe was serving with the tiebreaker at 5-5 and lost his first serve after being called for the violation, which brought up his second serve. Tiafoe lost that point and the following point to lose the match.
After shaking hands with Safiullin at the net, Tiafoe proceeded to drop multiple F-bombs on the Pinoargote, saying directly to him “F–k you, man! F–k you!”
You can see the videos of Tiafoe reacting to the time violation call and then him cursing out the umpire.
Scenes at the end of the Tiafoe match pic.twitter.com/z3NCeFv6Tj
— Robbie (@RobbxeTennis) October 8, 2024
Given some time to reflect upon his behavior, Tiafoe apologized.
“I really apologize for the way I acted tonight,” Tiafoe wrote in a statement posted to his Instagram story.
“That is not who I am and not how I ever want to treat people. I let my frustration in the heat of the moment get the best of me and I’m extremely disappointed with how I handled the situation. That’s not acceptable behavior and I want to apologize to the umpire, the tournament, and the fans.
“I’ll be better for yall.”
Frances Tiafoe on Instagram.
Well done 👏 https://t.co/NVW3pYq6iO pic.twitter.com/BuJXG6sEyP
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) October 8, 2024
Players have 25 seconds to serve. Tiafoe made the excuse that he had tossed up the ball, but it was clear he did not toss the ball as if he intended to hit his serve. Rather, Tiafoe was using the toss as a time-delaying mechanism. Pinoargote didn’t fall for the trick and called Tiafoe for the violation accordingly.
Tiafoe, who was a semifinalist at the US Open this year, is subject to a fine for his behavior.
