The early days of this year’s US Open can be told in a series of farewells to competitors who plan to end their careers this year. The most moving of them all came in the form of Gaël Monfils’s grand departure inside Louis Armstrong Stadium against the wildly talented 20-year-old Learner Tien. Tien was competing in front of his home crowd, one of the Americans capable of a deep run, but for much of his straight sets defeat the Frenchman had the American crowd in the palm of his hands.
Beyond the massive popularity he has garnered among tennis fans, one of the most striking parts of Monfils’s long farewell was seeing how highly nearly all of his fellow professional players, and particularly his fellow black players, regard him. Frances Tiafoe says he spent his youth looking up to Monfils. Arthur Fils considers Monfils his older brother. Naomi Osaka’s nickname for Monfils, one of her idols, is simply “the GOAT”. They all hold Monfils in such great esteem, and for good reason.
Related: Two forehands, no backhands: meet the US Open’s fascinating ambidextrous experiment
While women’s tennis has witnessed the successes of a long line of top black players, for so long Monfils and his retired compatriot Jo-Wilfried Tsonga were the standard bearers for black players in men’s tennis. In the same year that the 40-year-old Monfils will finally bow out, the new generation of black men’s players have consolidated their positions at the top of the sport.
Less than three weeks ago, the Cincinnati Open saw two black players compete in a Masters 1000 final for the first time in history as the 22-year-old Frenchman Fils overcame a year of injuries to defeat Tiafoe and win his first big title. Fils’s victory was preceded by Ben Shelton’s triumph at the Canadian Open in Montreal.
It took three weeks for the Fils v Foe final to be eclipsed by an even more significant match between two black players. Tiafoe and Shelton will compete against each other in the US Open semi-final on Friday night, with the winner becoming the first black man since Jo Wilfried Tsonga at the 2008 Australian Open and the first African American man since MaliVai Washington, the 1996 Wimbledon finalist, to reach a grand slam final. The finalist will then attempt to become the third black man to win a grand slam alongside Arthur Ashe and Yannick Noah. Along with last year’s semi-finalist Félix Auger-Aliassime, there will be four black players inside the ATP top 11. The status commanded by Monfils, who never reached a major final, plainly underlines how important this moment is for future generations of black tennis players as well as themselves.
As two Americans at the US Open, two players who have spent their entire careers being reminded of how far American men’s tennis has fallen since its decades of dominance over the sport, and particularly of Andy Roddick’s triumph at the 2003 US Open, the last time an American man won a title here, the significance of this moment is doubly important to Tiafoe and Shelton. Unlike in their previous runs, there are no other multiple grand slam champions or all-time greats left in the draw, with the earlier semi-final between the top seed Alexander Zverev and former top 10 player Karen Khachanov. Everyone can win this title.
The past few years in New York have been leading up to this match. This is just the fourth time in Shelton’s career that he has competed in the US Open main draw, yet somehow this will be their third US Open meeting. Shelton won in their 2023 quarter-final before Tiafoe exacted revenge in a bruising five-set third round match in 2024. Shelton and Tiafoe have become great friends, which can be awkward on-court for some, but they enjoy battling against each other so much that their relationship only makes them even more determined to produce their best tennis. It helps that they are both such creative, all-court players with great variation and explosive athleticism, which makes for such a complimentary match-up.
This is a third major semi-final for both players, but neither man has ever been so well prepared. Shelton just delivered the biggest win of his career over the defending champion Carlos Alcaraz and the 23-year-old continues to evolve into a genuine grand slam threat. Tiafoe, meanwhile, has been one of the revelations this year. The 28-year old has spent the season determined to be more professional and focused each week than ever before, and his results are a direct consequence of his growing maturity. Their efforts have yielded by far the biggest opportunity of their careers, and the winner will be decided by which competitor is truly ready for the pressure and weight that accompanies such a massive opening.
