TENNIS TUESDAY: Serena Ready To Play Stanford, Tiafoe Loses In ATP Debut

Serena Williams is scheduled to return to the WTA Tour today, almost 4 weeks after she was last seen on a tennis court barely able to hit a tennis ball during her ill-fated doubles match with sister Venus at Wimbledon.

Serena has been spending time in Croatia with her hitting partner Sasha and doing some training as well as enjoying herself on vacation.

Despite rumors to the contrary, Serena has not stopped working with her coach Patrick Moutaoglou and even though she pulled out of the Swedish Open (on clay) she is fulfilling her commitment to the Bank of the West Classic in Stanford, which the World #1 won in 2012 over fellow American Coco Vandeweghe the reigning champion.

Sister Venus, Angelique Kerber, Agnieska Radwanska and former World #1 Vika Azarenka are also in the draw.

On the other side of the country future American #1 Francis Tiafoe made his ATP Tour debut at the Citi Open in Washington, D.C. in front of his hometown crowd and although he won his first ever professional point with an ace, he lost the match 4-6 4-6 to Evgeny Donskoy.

Tiafoe is just 16 years old, but it one of the top
juniors in the world, having won the two most important junior tournaments in the world (the prestigious Orange Bowl and the Easter Bowl) in the same season. The last American to do that was named John McEnroe, and he turned out pretty well as a pro.

Tiafoe is under extreme scrutiny as America hungers for a male player with the ability to win majors and dominate the game as the Williams sisters have on the women's side. So far that pressure has not helped Tiafoe's results but realistically he is at least 4 to 5 years before he will be making any kind of significant impact on the men's tour.