Too Soonjokes

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.

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.

Gauff is 22 and already has a "comeback." She won the French Open at 21, lost in the first round of Wimbledon at 21, and is in the US Open semis at 22. In tennis, your whole life happens before you can rent a car.

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.

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.