SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Now a turn to sports. The U.S. Open is the biggest tennis tournament in this country, and it's been 23 long years since an American man won the singles final. Could this year be different? An overnight thriller of a match last night says the answer may finally be yes. NPR sports correspondent Becky Sullivan is with us. Hi, Becky.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Hey, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: So the reason we're having this conversation is because last night, the highest-ranked American man...
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: ...Ben Shelton, toppled one of the current best two players in men's tennis. I understand this match ended at 3:30 in the morning.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: I really hope you weren't there to the...
SULLIVAN: A little later.
PFEIFFER: ...To the very end.
SULLIVAN: (Laughter) Well, certainly not there but, boy I can tell you what - I'm tired today. I mean, yeah, this was, like, an epic showdown. It was the most hyped match of the Men's Singles bracket so far, I think, easily. Because, as you say, it features the highest-ranked player in the bracket. That's Carlos Alcaraz, the Spanish phenom, who is the defending U.S. Open champion. He's 23 years old, already has seven Grand Slam Singles titles to his name. Earlier this year, he became the youngest man ever to complete the Career Grand Slam. But he's just come back from months away from the court with a wrist injury, and so that presented this opening for Ben Shelton.
He's the most exciting young, American man in the sort of top levels of pro tennis right now. He's also 23 but a very different player from Alcaraz, who is, like, lithe and compact, whereas Shelton is very physical and athletic. You see right away when he's on the court. He's really tall. He's 6-foot-4, super-built. And so this match was, like, incredible, very physical. It was four and a half hours long. It began after 11 p.m. Eastern...
PFEIFFER: (Laughter).
SULLIVAN: ...Time. And just true to the hype, it was a thrill. I mean, some of the points themselves were epic battles, let alone the whole match.
PFEIFFER: And they worked hard.
SULLIVAN: Shelton did, yeah.
PFEIFFER: They needed five sets to win. Is that right?
SULLIVAN: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, and even that final set went to a tiebreak, and so, you know, very close. In the end, obviously, Shelton, who won - he did so - that match point on a 146 mile per hour ace, which is his trademark move. But to do it in the middle of the night, I think, was really especially impressive. So afterward, you know, the stands are still quite full, having seen this amazing match. And he was giving his on-court interview, and he just thanked everybody for staying, including his loved ones, of course. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN SHELTON: I'm just hoping that my best friend and my sister up there don't have to be at work at 6 a.m. - in three hours. It'd be huge from their employers to let them have the day off today. But...
SULLIVAN: (Laughter) So yeah. Anyway, he's now on to the semifinals. That's on Friday. So he does have today to sleep in and recover.
PFEIFFER: So I've got to ask again about this finish time - 3:33 a.m. I understand it's the latest in U.S. Open history.
SULLIVAN: Yeah.
PFEIFFER: Why did that happen?
SULLIVAN: I mean, this sometimes happens in tennis, right? You get these matches stacked one after another in the same stadium. And then, you know, sometimes they're short, but sometimes they all go the distance, and that's what happened yesterday. So it was these great matches all back-to-back. But this one was the headliner - Alcaraz versus Shelton. You know, Shelton's this big star. We talked about Alcaraz as one of this sort of powerhouse duo in tennis right now with Jannik Sinner. These two guys have dominated most of these Grand Slams in recent years.
And so for this, like, big headliner match, I think, to start after 11 p.m. Eastern time was really rough - not ideal for the tournament or the broadcasters or the fans watching on TV, I mean, maybe not even the sport, in general, if you're somebody who's trying to grow tennis popularity in United States. It's difficult, too, for the players to play their best when it's the middle of the night. It makes the recovery for the next match a challenge. And so, you know, this is how the U.S. Open has just long done it. But there's definitely, I think, some hand-wringing taking place...
PFEIFFER: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: ...Today over this.
PFEIFFER: So for Shelton to break that 23-year-old record, he still has two more matches to win.
SULLIVAN: Yes. Definitely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so in the semifinal this Friday, he's going to face actually another American in Frances Tiafoe, who's a big fan favorite. Neither of these two guys has ever won a Grand Slam Singles title, and in fact, whoever wins this semifinal will be playing in his first career Grand Slam Final at all.
And so, you know, the other thing I think that's important to note here is some history. You know, to have these particular two guys playing in Arthur Ashe Stadium - the iconic stadium the big matches that the U.S. Open hold - you know, so Tiafoe was born in Maryland to immigrant parents from Sierra Leone. Shelton's dad, Brian Shelton, who's a former professional tennis player himself, is Black. And so the winner of this semifinal will be the first Black man to play in the U.S. Open Final since Ashe himself last did so more than 50 years ago. In fact, Ashe remains the only Black American man who's ever won the U.S. Open or Wimbledon or Australian Open, for that matter. And so for the chance for that history to be made, I think, is worth marking.
PFEIFFER: And history will be made. That is NPR's Becky Sullivan. Thank you.
SULLIVAN: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRENT REZNOR AND ATTICUS ROSS' "CHALLENGERS (MIXED)") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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