WATCH: Frances Tiafoe smashes his racket in anger minutes after Arthur Fils' frustrated display during tense Miami Open clash

Frances Tiafoe lost his composure towards the end of his third-round match against Arthur Fils at the 2025 Miami Open on Monday (March 24). The 27-year-old smashed his racket into smithereens following a listless return game late in the third set against the Frenchman, eventually losing the match.

The first set of the clash between Tiafoe and Fils went down to the wire, as the latter edged it in a tiebreaker by a scoreline of 13 points to 11. The 17th seed then held serve until 5-4, where he would come up with two match points on his opponent's serve. The 16th-seeded American saved both of them with some gutsy play and broke serve in the following game before taking the set 7-5, prompting the French youngster's anger to boil over as he smashed his racket on the ground multiple times.

Although Frances Tiafoe nabbed another break of serve at 2-1 in the deciding set, he surrendered his next two service games in a shocking display. The World No. 17 then failed to win a single point on Arthur Fils's service game at 2-4 down, following which he expressed his frustrations by breaking his racket with so much force that his vibration dampener fell out.

Tiafoe was broken yet again in the final game of the match, losing 6-7(11), 7-5, 2-6 to the 20-year-old Fils. While the Round-of-32 encounter in Miami between the two players was temperamental, to say the least, they courteously greeted each other at the net.

Arthur Fils will next face top-seeded Alexander Zverev for a place in the quarterfinals of the Florida event. The World No. 18 has put together a great campaign at this year's Sunshine Double, also having reached the quarterfinals at the Indian Wells Masters last week - where he lost to Daniil Medvedev in a tough three-setter.

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Frances Tiafoe has now lost six of his 12 matches in 2025

Frances Tiafoe has struggled with form since the last few months | Image Source: Getty

Frances Tiafoe fell to a mediocre 6-6 win/loss tour-level record following his third-round exit at the 2025 Miami Open. Moreover, the 27-year-old hasn't won back-to-back matches since his semifinal run at the US Open last August.

Tiafoe has lost many close matches already this year. The American led Hungary's Fabian Marozsan by two sets to one in their second-round match at the Australian Open before eventually losing 7-6(3), 4-6, 6-3, 4-6, 1-6. He then dropped consecutive three-setters to Yoshihito Nishioka and Alejandro Davidovich at the Dallas Open and the Abierto Mexicano Telcel, respectively.