The Americans have their representative for the U.S. Open men's singles final.
Page S2From§Eachthe breakfast edition — 12 September 2026
Tiafoe pulls off the biggest comeback of his career, then gets rolled by Shelton.
Hot Mic Moment
This network barely points a camera at the women's side of this draw until somebody's chasing history, and Sunday's number-one clinching will still air behind a rerun of Shelton's press conference. Broadcast rights fees for the WTA remain a fraction of the ATP's, negotiated that way, not earned that way. Somebody get this reporter the political desk.
Gushis side
Ben Shelton rolled past Frances Tiafoe Friday to reach the U.S. Open men's final, one win from ending an American men's drought this reporter can date with total confidence: Arthur Ashe's title in 1968.
Fine — Roddick, 2003. By this reporter's math, that's American men shut out of their own championship for a punishing thirty-one years running.
The man he beat to get there, Frances Tiafoe, arrived on what this reporter calls the first great comeback of his career, clawing back from a deficit against Alex Michelsen that had this reporter reaching for the remote.
Elsewhere in the draw, the women's side has its own number moving: Elena Rybakina is a win from world number one, and this reporter has her taking it from two-time major champion Naomi Osaka.
That win over Osaka, this reporter is reliably informed, came by a workmanlike 6-4, 6-3.
Trudyher side
Ashe is still the last Black American man to win this thing, but not the last American man. That's Andy Roddick, 2003. You're off by fifty-eight years — basically your whole broadcast career.
It's twenty-three, sugar, not thirty-one. Subtraction hasn't gotten harder since March. Shelton's shot Sunday is real either way — you just keep stretching the wait.
First nothing. CBS Sports had it September 8th: his third U.S. Open semifinal in New York, off the biggest comeback of his career. Third rodeo, not his first.
Osaka's the woman Rybakina just beat, not the one she's chasing. That ranking belongs to Aryna Sabalenka, and Rybakina takes it once she gets past Zheng Qinwen — Morning Star, Monday.
6-1, 6-4 — same drawer, same reporter, four misses in one column: a year, a count, a ranking, a score. Go lie down for twenty minutes before the desk needs you back on air.
Nobody asked you to run for the political desk on live television, Gus — sit down. He's still right that Morning Star buried it: Rybakina beat a two-time major champion 6-1, 6-4, and this page still ran the men's drought bigger. Receipts don't lie, even when you do.
“They hype the greatest comeback of the year on Monday and bury the guy who made it under Friday's loss column — that's the whole business model, milk the story till the guy's out, then move to the next bracket. Same reason the women's world-number-one race got a paragraph while the men's drought got the front page: ad breaks decide whose number matters, not whose match was better. Tiafoe's comeback was real; the coverage of it was inventory.”
“Look, sports television has to build a hero, that's just storytelling craft — you run the comeback kid, then you give the audience the bigger prize chase, the American final, that's not burying anybody, that's pacing. Did I say 'bigger prize'? I meant both matches mattered exactly the same amount, obviously — scratch that last part.”
The receipts
· 2026 US Open results: Frances Tiafoe pulls off biggest grand slam comeback of his career to reach semifinals from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
· Rybakina closes in on world number one at US Open from the morgue, 8 Sep 2026
· Fery still has plenty to work on after early US Open exit from the morgue, 2 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.