MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's been 23 years since an American man won a Grand Slam tennis singles title. But there is an even longer drought that will come to an end this weekend. No Black man has reached the singles final of the U.S. Open in more than half a century. Tonight, two American men will face off in a semifinal match to see who will make that history. NPR's Becky Sullivan has the story.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: It's already a big deal that one of the U.S. Open semifinals tonight features two American men. But Chris Eubanks, a former Black pro player who is now an analyst for ESPN, says, it's more than that.
CHRIS EUBANKS: Especially Black American men to be competing for a Grand Slam, that just - you haven't seen it in my lifetime.
SULLIVAN: Of course, there's been no shortage of Black American women to win Grand Slams from Venus and Serena Williams to Coco Gauff. But it's been a different story for Black American men. In 1968, Arthur Ashe became the first Black man to win this country's biggest tennis tournament. A few years later, he reached the final again and lost. And that's it. That's the last time a Black man played for the U.S. Open singles title. That will change after tonight's match between Americans Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton, who both won dramatic five-setters earlier this week to advance to the semis, as heard here on ESPN.
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SULLIVAN: Tiafoe and Shelton are two totally different players with different styles, different personal stories, different identities. Yet tonight they'll share this path to history, which is one they've both reflected on in the past.
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FRANCES TIAFOE: It was incredible people that were able to do certain things for us to be doing certain things now.
SULLIVAN: Tiafoe is 28. He's African American, the Maryland-born son of immigrants from Sierra Leone. Last year, he was asked about playing in the long shadows of Ashe and trailblazer Althea Gibson, the first Black person ever to win a Grand Slam title.
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TIAFOE: Got hella love for both. And, you know, I wish I could be saying that to them personally. But, man, if they're over, watching us, and if - I hope they're smiling over us because we're doing some great stuff with that small opportunity.
SULLIVAN: Few years ago, Tiafoe became just the third Black American man ever to reach the top 10 in the pro tennis rankings. Then last year, Shelton became the fourth. Shelton, who's 23, is mixed race, the son of two tennis players. His dad, Bryan, who's also his coach, is Black. He was once a top 100 pro himself. But his road there in the 1970s and '80s wasn't always easy, his son once recalled.
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BEN SHELTON: He's told me stories of tournaments that he showed up, played, even won as a young kid, and then when he tried to enter the next year, they didn't let him play. So, yeah, it's not something that I'm blind to or he's blind to. Like, those things are real. But at the same time, you know, he had a pretty good career as a player and now as a coach.
SULLIVAN: Shelton and Tiafoe are just two guys in this new generation of American men hoping to be the first to win a Grand Slam singles title since Andy Roddick last did it in 2003. Neither has ever reached a Grand Slam final. Tiafoe is older, more experienced. Shelton has more raw athleticism and perhaps more talent. But he's still young and working to refine his game. They faced off four times as pros. Shelton has won three. For Eubanks, the pro-turned-analyst, tonight's semifinal is a major step for representation in what historically has been a predominantly white sport.
EUBANKS: To know that there's a generation of young Black boys who will be able to see someone that looks like them, you know, competing on Arthur Ashe Stadium, of all places, for a Grand Slam trophy, to me, it's a very chilling and it's a very surreal feeling.
SULLIVAN: Whether it's Tiafoe who wins or Shelton, Eubanks says the fact that these two are playing in a match this big and that one will advance to the U.S. Open final is a win all its own.
Becky Sullivan, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF KAYTRANADA AND BADBADNOTGOOD'S "WEIGHT OFF") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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