The U.S. Open tennis tournament starts Sunday in Flushing, Queens, some of the marquee matches being played in the big room at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Arthur was a great American men’s player, someone who won this country’s national championship in tennis in 1968, back when the tournament was still played on grass at the West Side Tennis Club in Forest Hills. After Arthur came these American men’s champions at the Open: Stan Smith, Jimmy Connors, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, almost in formation.
The very last in the line was Andy Roddick, the last American man to win a major championship, 22 years ago, at the Open of 2003. And know that Roddick was every bit a great player, too. He won that one major here, but also had four losses to Roger Federer in Grand Slam finals after that, one at the Open and three at Wimbledon. In one of those Wimbledon finals he didn’t finally lose until it was 16-14 in the fifth set.
But now it’s been a minute for American men in majors, hasn’t it? Maybe this time will be different, just because it is past time for it to happen, here or anywhere else. Maybe Ben Shelton or Taylor Fritz or even Frances Tiafoe, who’s been knocking on the door for a few years, can make himself the biggest story at the end of this Open, and not Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz, who will be trying to go up against each other in three straight Grand Slam finals. That’s something that hasn’t happened since Novak Djokovic faced off against Rafa Nadal in the finals of Wimbledon and the Open in 2011 and the Australian in 2012.
Their ascendant and nascent rivalry, one or the other having now won the last seven majors and eight of the last nine, happens for men’s tennis right after Federer and Nadal and Djokovic combined to win an out-of-this-world 66 majors (Connors, McEnroe and Bjorn Borg won 26). It is Sinner and Alcaraz who now make the sport feel as big as ever when they play, especially after a French Open final that lasted five hours and 29 minutes, went to a fifth-set tiebreaker and was, I believe, the greatest men’s tennis match ever played.
Sinner is 24. Alcaraz is 22. They have now combined to win nine majors before either of them turns 25. If they are blessed with good health — and remember Sinner did have to default out of the Cincinnati final because of illness last Monday afternoon — this rivalry could go on for the next decade, or even longer than that. Federer won his last major, the Australian of 2018, at the age of 36. Nadal had just turned 36 when he won his final French Open. Djokovic’s last major — for now — was at the Open of 2023, when he was 36. So the possibilities for Sinner and Alcaraz appear to be endless if both go the distance the way Fed and Rafa and Djokovic did.
Again: These two young guys make men’s tennis feel as important and glamorous as it did when Connors and McEnroe and Borg were in their primes in the 1970s and then into the ’80s. Then came Sampras and Agassi, who won 22 majors between them and whose own rivalry lit up the sport, all the way until a pretty wonderful Open final between them in 2002, the year before Roddick got his, in what was essentially Sampras’ last stand in the fourth set that day.
Federer and Nadal and Djokovic took the stage after that and basically held it for the next 20 years almost as long as Alcaraz has been alive. But just imagine how important it would feel again in this country — for just a couple of weeks — if an American man could somehow shock the world and win the Open this time. Imagine what a moment that would be for American tennis, for the first time since Roddick, who just happened to play out his prime in Federer’s prime.
On the day in 2009 when Federer got another Wimbledon off Roddick, it was Roger’s 15th major, passing Sampras at 14. Little did we know that Federer would win five more majors after that. But Sampras as in the Royal Box at Centre Court that day in July of ’09, and when it was over Roddick said this to him from the court:
“Sorry, Pete. I know I tried to hold him off.”
It was the wrong time for Roddick. Maybe this is the wrong time for Fritz, who became the first American man since Roddick to make a major final last September before running into Sinner. The score in that one was 6-3, 6-4, 7-5 for Sinner. This was after Fritz, who doesn’t turn 28 until October, had beaten Tiafoe in the semis.
But the American man with the most upside at this point is Shelton, who is still just 22 and who two years ago became the youngest American semifinalist at a major in over 30 years. He is a big guy with a game to match and a world of talent, and is the most exciting and watchable American man since Roddick was pounding serves and swinging away from the baseline when he was Shelton’s age.
The problem Shelton at the moment is that he is in Alcaraz’s quarter of the draw, which is never a good place to be, even on a hardcourt, probably the Spanish kid’s weakest surface, if Alcaraz has such a thing.
Shelton is coming off his biggest win yet, in Toronto a couple of weeks ago. But it is worth nothing that both Sinner and Alcaraz skipped that event. But both will be very much present in New York, where Sinner will try to win his fourth major out of the last five. If Sinner had converted any one of the three match points he had against Alcaraz in Paris, he would be going for the calendar Grand Slam in men’s tennis, something only ever accomplished on the men’s side by Don Budge and Rod Laver. But you better believe Alcaraz will be spoiling for a rematch with Sinner after Sinner prevented him from winning three Wimbledons in a row less than two months ago.
“There’s a lot of great players, hungry, in-form players, who are looking to do some damage and, yeah, I think I’m one of those guys,” Shelton said not long ago.
In so many ways Shelton, a kid who has already made two semis at majors (he also did it at the Australian), is the No. 3 player in the world right now. And that is very good news for American tennis. The bad news is that No. 1 and No. 2 are the big dogs, Sinner and Alcaraz.
One of these days, another American man is going to win a major. To do it anytime soon, he may have to knock off Sinner or Alcaraz. Or both. If it is going to happen, Shelton is the best bet. My money is on him. If nothing else, it’s going to be big fun watching the big kid try, whether we’re going to end up with Sinner-Alcaraz III or not.
MORE ERRORS FOR THE YANKS, GIANTS FACE A BRUTAL SCHEDULE & TIME TO HONOR JIMMY AT THE OPEN …
Somebody please explain to me when Jazz Chisholm became such a Bronx Bomber that Aaron Boone can never pinch-hit for him ever.
People acted like four errors for the Yankees on Thursday night was a lot.
Say it again: Cameron Young, the Sleepy Hollow kid, needs to be on the Ryder Cup team.
I will ask this question again, whatever happens with the Mets the rest of the way:
What move has David Stearns made since being in charge that has dramatically improved his baseball team’s chance to win it all?
Forget about not being asked to be on Mike Brown’s staff — I’m hurt that Coco Gauff hasn’t asked me to be her coach.
Incidentally?
I read the other day about Brown’s offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator and remember when the only people Red Holzman had sitting next to him were Dick Barnett and the Knicks’ trainer, Big Time Danny Whelan.
For the Giants, it’s fast approaching the point where you can’t stop Jaxson Dart, you can only hope to contain him.
But the context with both Dart and the Giants doesn’t change:
They have as brutal a regular-season schedule I have ever seen.
Sure is quiet around here without Aaron Rodgers using up all the oxygen in the room.
All the relief pitchers in the world don’t take you all the way to the top unless you know how to utilize them correctly, am I right?
The FBI in those television shows is run way better than the one we’ve got going these days.
Maybe this is the year when the U.S. Open figures out a way not to have matches end in the middle of the night.
One more thing about tennis today:
There was no one more responsible for making the Open the big deal it became once it moved to Flushing than Jimmy Connors.
One of these days the USTA ought to find a way to acknowledge that somewhere on the grounds.
The Red Sox getting rid of Rafael Devers really was a classic example of addition by subtraction in sports.
In the end, Micah Parsons will do everything except dunk the ball on Jerry Jones.
Once more, for the West Coast:
All this publicity Jerry gets — how’s that working out for his football team?
You know who had a better chance than Giancarlo Stanton of catching that ball Alex Bregman hit to right field on Thursday night?
Everyone.
James Patterson and Mike Lupica’s new Jane Smith thriller, “The Hamptons Lawyer,” has now spent a month on the Best Seller lists of both the New York Times and Publishers Weekly.
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