SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it's time for sports.
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SIMON: U.S. Open championship weekend, and the NFL regular season kicks off. Michele Steele joins us now. She writes the Steele Cut Substack on sports and economics. Good morning. And you're in Austin - right? - for the Longhorn's hosting...
MICHELE STEELE: Texas Longhorns. Yeah. Howdy, Scott. I'm surrounded by burnt orange and burnt ends.
SIMON: Well, very good to talk to you. Let's get - by the way, your howdy was immaculate.
STEELE: I've been practicing.
SIMON: Let me ask - U.S. Open women's final this afternoon. These are the two best players in the world - aren't they? - a dream matchup.
STEELE: Oh, yeah. I mean, this is going to be just a dream final. And what's interesting here is, irregardless of who wins, Rybakina locks up the world No. 1 ranking on Monday just by being there. Sabalenka could win the match and still watch the top-ranking walk out the door, basically.
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: But what's interesting here is that Sabalenka is chasing history. She's going to join Serena Williams - if she wins - Serena Williams and Chris Evert as the only women to win three straight U.S. Opens. And she is on a 19-match win streak over in Flushing Meadows. So so many people are going to be rooting for her to make a little bit of history. But Rybakina already knocked her off at the Aussie Open this year, so this is going to be a challenge for both sides here. So grab your popcorn.
SIMON: Men's final tomorrow. Alexander - I hope I'm getting this right - Zverev of Germany faces Ben Shelton of the United States. Hadn't been a U.S. guy in the Open since 2003. How do you see this going?
STEELE: Yeah. The last person to do it was Andy Roddick back when, in 2003. Ben Shelton was negative-3 years old at the time, Scott.
SIMON: (Laughter).
STEELE: His parents might not have even been thinking about little Ben at that point. But the hype is real around this match. Because Shelton - I don't know if you saw the match last night, but Shelton beat Frances Tiafoe - they're actually really good friends - in an all-American semi that absolutely had Arthur Ashe Stadium buzzing. He will be the first Black American man to reach this final since Arthur Ashe himself in 1972. I'm talking about history on the women's...
SIMON: Wow.
STEELE: ...Side. This is history on the men's side as well. I watched the Zverev match as well. He's a little bit - you know, Shelton is going to be a little bit of the plucky underdog, but Zverev is very, very, very good, and he's going to be facing a very hostile crowd tomorrow. It's going to be tight, and Arthur Ashe is going to be deafening for Ben Shelton tomorrow.
SIMON: NFL's season kicked off. The LA Rams were supposed to be unstoppable, right? But they...
STEELE: So...
SIMON: ...Lost 27 - 7 against the 49ers. I guess...
STEELE: Yeah.
SIMON: ...That long plane ride didn't help, 'cause they're playing in Australia.
STEELE: (Laughter) Yeah - 15 hours. And I don't know about you, but I actually don't sleep on flights, and I'm assuming there were more than a few Rams' players who also didn't sleep on that flight. They got there essentially right before the game. The Rams really gambled on sports science - their sports science helping them out. And it didn't work out because they looked like zombies on that field. Now, to be fair, Myles Garrett did play. Aaron Donald did not. He's just come out of retirement. He didn't even travel to Australia.
But what does a 20-point loss in Australia mean? Does that mean that there's no favorite in the NFL? Well, it does prove that overreactions might be our favorite national pastime, because there's still 17 more games left to play. So that's the beauty of football - is that nobody really knows anything yet...
SIMON: Yeah.
STEELE: ...Any given Sunday, Scott.
SIMON: Michele Steele, thanks so much. Have a great game.
STEELE: Thanks so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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