I didn’t feel it at the moment. That’s the part nobody tells you about history, sometimes it doesn’t announce itself until the morning after.

Tuesday night, Ben Shelton outlasted Carlos Alcaraz in four hours and twenty eight minutes, the match that didn’t end until 3:33 Wednesday morning. I went to bed exhausted from the tennis and woke up thinking about something bigger. Francis Tiafoe had already clawed his way back from two sets down against Alex Michelson. Shelton had just survived a war with the defending champion. And somewhere between falling asleep and waking up, it sunk in that two African-American men were about to play each other in the semifinals of the U.S. Open, for the first time ever. 

I was on the grounds for the first week, and got to see Tiafoe work through Rei Sakamoto in person. And that’s the thing about being courtside instead of on the couch, you feel how fragile all of it is. Any player can lose to anybody on a given day. It’s easy to now feel the impact of watching Tiafoe navigate the match in real time, not knowing if it was a step toward his third U.S. Open semifinal or not. And then to see how it actually unfolded a week later, there’s a surreal gap between what you’ve witnessed live and what you understand in hindsight. Tennis doesn’t tell you which moments matter while they’re happening, it reveals them after the fact. 

It’s been 58 years since Arthur Ashe won this tournament. 29 years since MaliVai Washington reached a major final at Wimbledon. On the men’s side, that’s a long, quiet gap, one that the women’s game never had, because the Williams sisters, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, and Coco Gauff kept the door open the whole time. But 2026 feels like a reboot on the men’s side, not just for African-American players, but for black players across the tour, with a new class, making noise on some big stages. Tiafoe and Shelton are prime time players, with eleven tour titles between them. They’re also a bridge, not returning to something lost, but a continuation of progress interrupted.

Tiafoe and Shelton have played doubles together. They’re close, closer than most people watching tonight will realize. And none of that will matter for three sets or five. They’ll be all business, all flash, all box office. And win or lose, they’ll still be friends tomorrow. It’s a shame one of them has to go home tonight. But if that’s the price of pushing American men’s tennis forward, at this stage of the tournament, it’s not a bad price to pay. 

Stylistically, they’re different. Tiafoe grew up around the game, his father working at a tennis facility, and that proximity became an interest that he parlayed into a career. His game reflects it, electric, dangerous, full of touch and shot making from anywhere on the court. Shelton came up inside of the game, a lefty with a 150 mph cannon that’s untouchable when it scorches the court,  and continuing to carry the same big, youthful energy he had at Florida. 

However, there are complications beneath a night like this too. Blackness has never been monolithic, even when history likes to portray it that way. Tiafoe and Shelton don’t arrive at this moment with identical backgrounds, identities, or relationships to the black experience or the audiences watching them. Tiafoe has jokingly referred to Shelton as “part-time,” an affectionate nickname that says more than it initially lets on, but throws shade at Shelton’s ability to double dutch his way in and around his blackness. As the son of an interracial couple he occupies a space that comes with contradictions and complexities that you're often left to navigate on your own. Too confident, too cocky, and too black for a lot of people. Not bold enough, bad enough, or black enough for others. Like I said, it’s complicated.

There are also many black fans (myself included) that have been understandably uneasy with Shelton‘s adjacency to conservative politics at times. Those things don’t disappear because the matchup is historic, and it's safe to say Shelton is still learning, growing, and has the respect of his peers, which speaks volumes. Tonight, his beliefs (regardless of what they actually are) can exist alongside the history about to be made. And you can expect fans in the building tonight will be split close to even, and both men will be deserving. It’s about the game first. Tonight, Sunday, and always.

It is also the 25th anniversary of 9/11. I remember a country that, at least for a moment, seemed determined to find unity in one of its darkest hours. Considering where we are today politically, there’s something fitting in two Black American men playing for a spot in the U.S. Open final on that same night. A reminder that this country can be the best version of itself, regardless of identity, on a tennis court or off one. 

I also know what Sunday will feel like because I’ve been there before. When Coco Gauff won this tournament, my wife and I were in an Airbnb in Santa Barbara, and we both cried tears of joy (there also may have been tears after Paolini’s 2024 Wimbledon loss). That match also conceived LOVEGAME and inspired the first post I ever wrote for the brand, and was rooted in exactly that feeling. If Tiafoe or Shelton lifts that trophy Sunday, somewhere somebody is going to feel what my wife and I felt in that Santa Barbara Airbnb three years ago. Maybe you’ll cry. And hopefully you’ll break into the Electric Slide with a shot on Hennesey in your hand. And maybe, win or lose, some black kids will pick up tennis rackets on Monday morning. 

That's how bridges stay getting built.