Too Soonjokes

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.

Coco Gauff plays Rybakina in the semis tonight. She's 22, has a French Open, and DraftKings calls it a coin flip. In the year she was born, the last American to win the US Open was already retired. The country waited 22 years for a coin flip.

Saturday, September 12: the Houthis have an island, Saudi shut a pipeline, Norway's leaving, a robot hacked a library and the librarian quit, the president's golfing in Ireland, a woman in remission lost her insurance for not being sick enough, and a 23-year-old plays for the first American major in 23 years tomorrow. Tell one. Vote. Watch the tennis.

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.

Friday, September 11, 2026: 25 years since the towers, 196 days into the next war, a $5,000 bribe on the table, a president who remembers being carried, a quarterback who remembers being carted, and 100,000 Australians who couldn't see the field. Never forget. Also, what time's the tennis.

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.