Frances Tiafoe revealed that he was late to the Shanghai Masters after missing his flight, forcing him to wait another day to travel to China. The world No 13 revealed that he turned up on time but went to the wrong airport entirely. And Tiafoe’s compatriot Taylor Fritz joked that he would be giving the 25-year-old some “s***” when he finally made it to Shanghai.
The Shanghai Masters is back on the tennis calendar for the first time since 2019, with tennis players having just two chances left to get a Masters 1000 title under their belt this season. But not everyone found it simple to return to China following a four-year hiatus.
After leading Team World to victory at the Laver Cup once again this year, Tiafoe took a few days off before heading to Shanghai for the tournament. But he was forced to reschedule his flight after going to the wrong airport in DC, arriving a day later than planned.
“Yeah so I missed my – well, I went to the wrong airport coming here,” the American laughed, speaking to the ATP. “I was super tired, had an 8am flight, I was leaving around 5:30, going to the airport.”
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Detailing how he mixed up the airports, he added: “We have two airports in DC. The international one, DCA, the (other) one, Dulles. And I went to DCA when I was supposed to go to Dulles and I missed the flight so I had to fly the following day.”
Tiafoe was then informed that Fritz had already been joking about his airport mishap during his own pre-tournament media duties. “Who knows?” the world No 8 said when he was asked when Tiafoe would be getting to Shanghai.
“It depends if he went to the right airport or not. I don’t feel like, I’ll give him s*** when he gets here. But I feel like when he misses his flight, the last thing he wants is me texting him making fun of him. Like, that’s the last thing I’d want.”
