A decade or so ago, when Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz and Frances Tiafoe were rowdy teenagers raising hell in the United States Tennis Association dormitories in Florida, they dreamed of days like Sunday at the US Open .
Coco Gauff and Ben Shelton were barely 10 years old at the time, still figuring out how big a role tennis would play in their youth, though it’s a safe bet that it was pretty big.
Flash forward to Sunday at the US Open, and those five players were in the middle of what was supposed to be a day-long American tennis festival in the fourth round, a part of the tournament when, for a long time, especially on the men’s side, the players. from Europe filled the starring roles. Not on Sunday, when the last Grand Slam tournament of the year got down to serious business and the round of 16.
The schedule features wall-to-wall red, white and blue; Black and white and mixed race players; players from rich families (Fritz), from lower means (Shelton, Gauff, Paul), and one (Tiafoe) who started with almost nothing; some players with years of tour experience and one so raw (Shelton) that he had to get a passport last year so he could leave the United States for the first time to play in the Australian Open.
“We always believed it was going to happen,” said Martin Blackman, the general manager for player development at the USTA, who has known all five players since their early years. “But you never know when.”
When Serena Williams, a majestic and groundbreaking figure in sports and culture for more than two decades, retired from pro tennis at this tournament last year, she left big questions about who might begin to fill in. the great loss he will leave, especially in American tennis. Some good hints came in a few days. Gauff and Tiafoe — charismatic figures with bright eyes and big smiles who play with equal parts heart, skill and athleticism — ignited the deep end of the 2022 tournament, the quarterfinals for Gauff and the semifinals for Tiafoe.
That was last year, though, and there’s no guarantee that they or any of their compatriots will make magic some of those days. Sunday represents a decent midpoint indicator.
Looking at the draw midway through last week, Fritz’s eyes drifted to the quarter above him, where Shelton, Paul and Tiafoe huddled together. Some big names have come out, and his people are still very much alive. He immediately thought, “One of them is going to make it to the semis,” and that was pretty cool.
Paul and Shelton get the action at noon Sunday in the opening match at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The stands filled more with each change, getting louder every time Shelton’s booming serve put big numbers on the radar gun.
Two adrenaline-fueled blasts clocked in at 149 miles per hour as he built a commanding two-set lead before Paul came alive with the crowd rallying behind him. The stadium was close to its capacity of 23,000 by the time his final forehand sailed long. It wasn’t the outcome Paul wanted, but the match had its moments.
Early on, he looked up at the video board and saw that he and his friends were on the list of Americans left out of the tournament. He let it sink in, those names from the dormitory hall, names that had been there in the final rounds of junior national tournaments in his teenage years.
“We all grew up,” Paul said after the loss. “That’s cool.”
Every Grand Slam tournament crowd throws its weight behind the home country players. At the Australian Open, the “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oy, Oy Oy!” singing is a constant refrain. The French burst into spontaneous singing of “La Marseillaise.” At Wimbledon, the Brits will pack the field court to urge a junior player they’ve never heard of with the same energy they offered Andy Murray.
The US Open crowd, by reputation the nastiest and most unsightly of them all, does its noisiest to get its own line.
Shelton, 20, hugged Paul at the net wanting to hear what might sound like full-throated screams from the biggest crowd he’s ever played with. It’s hard to blame him on that front.
“Amazing atmosphere, felt the love all day,” he told the court shortly.
And it stayed that way as Gauff played against Caroline Wozniacki, a former world No. 1. Wozniacki is on the comeback trail after having two children and is a longtime crowd favorite in New York.
That said, he’s never played Gauff on a day like a flashback to a few generations ago, back to the days when American men and women always promised to be the sport’s class and among its biggest stars. . It’s part tennis match, part reunion, with more shouts of “Go Coco!” than anyone could count in a building that Gauff, then just 19 years old, thought would make his home for the next decade.
A slight complication, a welcome one for the hometown crowd, emerged shortly after 4 p.m. when Tiafoe entered Louis Armstrong Stadium to play Australia’s Rinky Hijikata when Gauff found his groove. . Like a parent faced with a choice between children, Blackman needed a plan.
“First set with Coco, then over to Frances,” he said as he hurried through a hallway under the stadium.
Slight complications for Gauff, too, in the form of a late-second and early third-set wobble that sent him hitting backhand after backhand into the middle of the net. Wozniacki surged into the lead, breaking Gauff’s serve in the first game of the third set. But Gauff and his 20,000 friends weren’t going to let that last, not today. With a killer “Come on!” and gritted his teeth in the last six games, bulldozing his way back to the quarterfinals.
“There was some singing, which was really good.” Gauff said later. “The crowd really doesn’t compare to any of the other Slams.”
She has won two of three US Open tuneup tournaments and, despite dropping sets in three of her first four singles matches, is brimming with confidence.
“I’ve been in this position before,” said Gauff, a French Open finalist last year. “I can still go.”
Meanwhile, at Armstrong, Tiafoe is cruising.
If Ashe is the grand cathedral of American tennis, Armstrong is its party space, a 10,000-seat concrete box with a high seating level that seems to hang almost above the court and a retractable roof that keeps reverberating. the sound up and down and even around. tomorrow And nobody these days, except Carlos Alcaraz, knows how to party like Tiafoe, 25, who broke into the top 10 of the rankings for the first time earlier this year.
The drunker and more spirited the fans the better as far as he is concerned. He pumped his fists, shook his racket, and even occasionally stuck out his tongue after curling forehands and leaping two-handed backhands, to do it how he liked it, with as many shout “Go Big Foe!” as he could wring from them. It’s how long he believes American tennis should be, and part of the reason he’s Paul’s favorite player to watch in the sport.
Next up for Tiafoe is Shelton, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“He will follow me, and I will follow him,” he said. “I plan on semi.”
Then it was Fritz’s turn, filling Armstrong’s early-night slot, and taking the court shortly after Tiafoe left, against Dominic Stricker, 21, of Switzerland, one of the surprises of the tournament. Stricker needed to win three matches in the qualifying tournament to enter the main draw and upset Stefanos Tsitsipas, a two-time Grand Slam singles finalist, in the second round. He had played 22 sets of tennis in New York, including two five-setters, before he hit his first ball against Fritz.
Most of Tiafoe’s crowd descended the stairs to the main plaza of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Waiting below are thousands more ready to take over, Honey Deuces, Aperol spritzes, beer, poke bowls and fries in hand.
Three American headliners have already moved on. Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula are set to play in the fourth round on Monday, and Peyton Stearns, from Ohio and the University of Texas, is set to play Marketa Vondrousova, this year’s Wimbledon champion. This home-country party continues.
