6 has worked hard to add structure and focus to his charge’s game. That has been a key focus for Tiafoe’s coach, Wayne Ferreira, who has worked with the American since just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. “If you want to be a champion, sometimes you have to make sacrifices and I think over the last couple of years he’s embraced the sacrifices it takes and the discipline it takes to win at a high level, especially at that level.” Mentally being in the right frame of mind where you’re not being motivated by outside entities, but self motivation,” Locksley said. The work is done in the dark, it’s done in your training, preparing your body for a long Tour season. “One of the things we talked about is if you want to be a consistent winner, you’ve got to develop that killer instinct and develop a championship routine. Although there is nothing wrong with that, a key is to separate that from the work that must be done. Locksley added that with such a welcoming personality, people will be gravitate to Tiafoe. Tiafoe and Locksley at the University of Maryland. You walk away after you met and he’s got that infectious smile, the personality and just really a welcoming personality.” “He has a personality that makes everyone seem as though it’s not the first time they’ve met. “A guy like him, who has had most of the odds stacked against him and to overcome them and become not just the tennis player, but the person that he is, it’s been very rewarding to watch and see. “I think it’s the humility that the kid shows… To know his story and what he’s overcome to get to where he is, that is what drew me ,” Locksley said. Every step of the way, he does it with an unforgettable smile on his face. Given where he comes from, Tiafoe is doing everything in his power to take his career as far as possible. It was there that Tiafoe picked up the game and now he is competing on the biggest stages in the world. The American is the son of two immigrants from Sierra Leone and his father was a janitor at a tennis facility in Maryland. Locksley has come across many people during his time, but he has been especially impressed with Tiafoe’s willingness to seek advice.
“It’s not necessarily about the physical part as much as it is about the mental approach, and I think that’s what he’s taken away from the relationship that he and I share.” With the questions he asked about Alabama, he was trying to find that secret sauce or that extra advantage or edge that would help him get over the top, which we’ve seen here firsthand at Flushing Meadows. “I know he’s been right there at the cusp a few times. “Anyone who knows him knows that he has an elite athleticism about him,” Locksley said.
But this first formal interaction impressed the coach, and from then on he has become a mentor to the 24-year-old, who on Wednesday advanced to his first Grand Slam semi-final at the US Open. Locksley had first met Tiafoe when he was a young teen - Tiafoe is a fixture on the sporting scene in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, otherwise known as the ‘DMV’. “What is that programme about? How do they win? How do they do it consistently?” “He came up to my office to meet me and had a lot of questions,” Locksley recalled. Locksley was told a young professional tennis player wanted to meet with him to learn more about what made Alabama successful. His previous job was as offensive coordinator at the University of Alabama, one of the most successful sports programmes at any level in any sport in the world. In 2019, Michael Locksley became the head coach of the football team at the University of Maryland.
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