Too Soonjokes

Shelton is the first Black American man in a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972, in a stadium named after Arthur Ashe. It took 54 years for the building to see someone it was named for. The Lions have been waiting since 1957, and they don't even have a building named after anybody.

Rybakina beat Sabalenka in a thriller for her first US Open. She's from Kazakhstan by way of Moscow, playing in Queens, in front of 23,000 people who paid $900 to whisper and one State Department that won't let them visit. The trophy's going home through customs.

Coco Gauff took the first set off Rybakina and lost the next two. She's 22 and the country's already writing the "what happened to Coco" piece. American tennis has one player and treats her like a season finale.

Sabalenka was one win from three straight US Opens and lost to Rybakina. Belarus versus Kazakhstan for an American title, decided in three sets, and the loser still goes home with $2.5 million and a country that thinks she should have won.

Ben Shelton beat Tiafoe and plays Zverev Sunday for the first American men's major in 23 years. Zverev's quote: "Hopefully I can not make the American dream come true." A German rooting against the American dream in New York. That's the first honest villain the city's had since the Yankees.

Zverev is in his third straight major final and his second US Open final. He lost the first one in 2020 from two sets up. He has the best record in tennis at reaching finals and the worst at remembering he's in one.