REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL, debuts TUESDAY, JUNE 20
(10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on HBO
(Frances Tiafoe speaking with Mary Carillo photo courtesy of HBO)
*American Dream. It has been 14 years since an American man hoisted a tennis Grand Slam trophy, but a revival looks to be underway with nine U.S. players ranked in the ATP’s Top 100, none more promising than the youngest person on that list, 19-year-old tennis star Frances Tiafoe. The son of refugees who escaped a war-torn Sierra Leone, Tiafoe’s family made a new home in Maryland. When Frances was still a toddler, his father took a job as a maintenance man at a local tennis academy. It proved fateful, as Frances would spend countless hours at the club, quietly picking up the sport. Before long, the maintenance man’s son was beating the academy’s top talent and winning national tournaments.
REAL SPORTS correspondent Mary Carillo goes one-on-one with the Hyattsville-native as he prepared for the French Open to find out how he is dealing with the pressure of bringing American tennis back to the forefront.
Producer: Chapman Downes.
The executive producers of REAL SPORTS WITH BRYANT GUMBEL are Rick Bernstein and Joe Perskie.