When Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe walk onto Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday night, history will already have been made. Ahead of the occasion, Lucky Rebel has examined how the two Americans compare.
The two Americans will become the first Black American men to face each other in a Grand Slam semi-final in the Open Era, with one guaranteed a place in Sunday’s US Open final. Shelton enters as the clear favourite, with the latest betting data from Lucky Rebel giving him a 73.4% chance of progressing compared with 26.6% for Tiafoe.
That it will happen on the court named after Arthur Ashe makes the occasion particularly fitting.
Ashe became the first Black man to win the US Open in 1968. Nearly six decades later, Shelton and Tiafoe will meet beneath his name with the winner guaranteed to join Ashe and MaliVai Washington among the Black American men to have contested a Grand Slam final.
It is a milestone even Coco Gauff admitted she did not expect to witness. The 2023 US Open champion said this week that, growing up, she never imagined she would see an all-Black men’s Grand Slam semi-final in her lifetime.
Now it is happening at her home major.
A rivalry that has already made history
This is not the first time Shelton and Tiafoe have shared a historic night at Flushing Meadows.
When they met in the 2023 US Open quarter-finals, it was the first Grand Slam quarter-final between two Black American men in the Open Era. Shelton, then 20, won in four sets to reach his first major semi-final.
Twelve months later Tiafoe got his revenge, beating Shelton across five sets in the third round.
Friday therefore acts as the New York decider between them, although Shelton holds the advantage overall, leading their career head-to-head 3-1. The betting market expects him to extend that record.
Shelton is priced at -325 to reach the final, compared with +260 for Tiafoe. Once the bookmaker margin is removed, that equates to a 73.4% implied probability for Shelton and 26.6% for Tiafoe.
Yet both men have already demonstrated this week how quickly those probabilities can be overturned.
Shelton has already beaten much longer odds
Shelton’s presence in the semi-final required one of the biggest victories of his career. The 23-year-old entered his quarter-final against defending champion Carlos Alcaraz with just a 23.8% implied probability of winning.
He had also lost each of his previous 17 matches against top-three opponents.
None of that mattered.
Shelton defeated Alcaraz 6-7, 6-1, 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 in a four-hour, 28-minute epic that finished at 3:33am, the latest finish in US Open history. It was his first victory over a top-three player and immediately transformed him from an outsider into one of the leading contenders for the title.
Shelton is now +145 to win the US Open, making him the second favourite behind Alexander Zverev at -105. Tiafoe remains a much longer shot at +725, with Karen Khachanov the outsider of the remaining four at +1400.
The shift is remarkable. Shelton went into his quarter-final as a sizeable underdog against the defending champion. One victory later, he is among the two clear favourites to win the tournament.
Tiafoe has fought his way back
Tiafoe’s route to Friday was scarcely less dramatic. The 28-year-old fell two sets behind Alex Michelsen in his quarter-final before mounting a remarkable recovery, eventually winning 5-7, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 7-6.
He is now appearing in his third US Open semi-final.
Twice he has reached this stage and fallen short. In 2022, eventual champion Alcaraz beat him in five sets. In 2024, Taylor Fritz did the same. Friday gives him another opportunity, against a player he knows particularly well. And whatever happens, one of them will leave Arthur Ashe Stadium having achieved something neither has managed before.
The winner will become a Grand Slam finalist and join Ashe and 1996 Wimbledon runner-up MaliVai Washington among the Black American men to have reached that stage.
He will also move within one victory of becoming the first American man to win a Grand Slam singles title since Andy Roddick at the 2003 US Open.
But before Sunday’s pursuit of a championship comes Friday’s piece of history. In 2023, Shelton and Tiafoe made history together in a Grand Slam quarter-final. Three years later, they are going one round further.
And on a court carrying Arthur Ashe’s name, one of them will go further still.
