![\"Ben](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/GettyImages-2294825543.jpg\")
<\/p>\nSo now Ben Shelton, at 23, still with so much ahead of him in tennis, will try to become the first American man to win our national championship in tennis in 23 years. The left-handed kid, born in Atlanta, son of the former player who now coaches him, will try to do that in a stadium named after Arthur Ashe, against the No. 1 seed, Alexander Zverev, himself playing in his third Grand Slam final this year.<\/p>\n
That is the game for Shelton, and the moment. It was Herb Brooks who once said that great moments are born from great opportunity.<\/p>\n
Who knows? Maybe in the year of the Knicks in this city, Shelton will have himself a Knicks moment, and end a different kind of waiting in his sport, the long wait for an American man to win the U.S. Open since Andy Roddick in 2003.<\/p>\n
After Shelton had beaten another American, Frances Tiafoe, in a four-set semifinal on Friday night, he was talking about what it was like to play a match like that at Ashe, with the usual array celebrities in the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh shoot,\u201d he said, smiling, talking about looking up into the crowd. \u201cJalen Brunson is here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he said, \u201cIt should be pretty fun for New York City on Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Big fun for a kid with such a big game, and even bigger serve than Pete Sampras did when he was the American star winning the Open. Pete, in fact, won his last Open the year before Roddick did, in September of \u201802. When Roddick succeeded Pete as champ, we thought that men\u2019s tennis still belonged to us. But then it belonged to Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, who would eventually win 66 majors among them. Then along came Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, who have already won a dozen majors of their own.<\/p>\n
Now Shelton has his chance to join the club, and do it here; do it in front of a tennis crowd that will try to make the kind of sports sound for Shelton that it once did next door when a left-handed American named Jimmy Connors was lighting up Louis Armstrong Stadium back in 1991.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Julian Finney\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Ben Shelton returns a shot against Frances Tiafoe during their Men’s Semifinal match on Friday. (Photo by Julian Finney\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
If Shelton does win the Open Sunday, he will probably feel as if he\u2019s won the title for the second time in a week. That\u2019s because of the thrilling way he took out the defending champ \u2014 Alcaraz \u2014 in five sets that didn\u2019t end until the clock at Ashe said they had gone past 3:30 in the morning in a fifth-set match tiebreaker. A quarterfinal that looked every bit like a final.<\/p>\n
Only once before had Alcaraz ever lost a fifth set. The record for Alcaraz before Shelton was 15-1 in five-setters. Shelton made it 15-2 by winning four of the last five points in set number five. Shelton played like a complete star, out of Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. Even at the very end he was trying to hit serves 150 mph. Now he needs to figure out a way against Zverev\u2019s own big serve \u2014 after Zverev\u2019s finished bouncing the ball what feels like a hundred times \u2014 to win the Open. Shelton: Trying to have his New York moment, what will feel like one for the ages even at his young age if he wins.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going for it here,\u201d he said on Friday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is where we want to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know what my goal is,\u201d Ben Shelton said. \u201cI know what my job is.\u201d<\/p>\n
He has his chance to make himself a big story in sports even on a day when we get such a full schedule of NFL football, all the way until the Giants open against the Cowboys on Sunday Night Football. It is Week 1 for pro football. It is different in men\u2019s tennis once the final kicks off at 2 on Sunday afternoon. This is the last major of the year, but one that can be such an amazing beginning for Ben Shelton.<\/p>\n
Zverev won his first career major at the French Open, managing to do that without having to beat Sinner, who got sick and lost early, or Alcaraz, still recovering from a wrist injury at the time. Zverev has also been the beneficiary of a dream draw at this Open, despite having middle-of-the-night dramas of his own along the way. In addition to this being his third major final of the year, it is also his fourth semifinal.<\/p>\n
Shelton beat the player, Alcaraz, who is the best player in the world when healthy. Now he gets Zverev, who\u2019s had a better Grand Slam year than anybody.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing things I haven\u2019t done before,\u201d Shelton said after he beat his friend Tiafoe.<\/p>\n
Zverev\u2019s last two matches have been straight-setters. Shelton played those five sets and four hours and 28 minutes against Alcaraz. Then he played four more hard sets against Tiafoe, that match ended up against 11 o\u2019clock. So nine sets already for Shelton this week. Nearly eight hours on the court. Maybe it won\u2019t matter to a 23-year-old playing the best tennis of his life. We will see about that at Ashe, in what will feel like one of the most important tennis moments the place has ever had.<\/p>\n
Mostly we will see if this really is Ben Shelton\u2019s time. He\u2019ll be the home team today. Looking for his own great moment. Maybe, just maybe, New York is about to have another one of those.<\/p>\n
A GUY NAMED JOE<\/p>\n
Over the past 25 years, I have written more than once about Sept. 11, 2001, remembering that day and the ones that followed in New York.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve done my best trying to describe it was like to be an American in that time, and also as someone who had worked in New York City as long as I had, and have.<\/p>\n
And what it was like to be the son of Bene Lupica, who had joined the Army Air Force at the age of 20 and then flown 31 missions as a bombardier in B24\u2019s over Europe. My Pops: Who had lived long enough \u2014 almost 60 years exactly from when he\u2019d gone off to fight World War II \u2014 and had now seen his country attacked out of the sky like this.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve written of what it was like to be a parent of four children, and worrying and wonder what kind of world this had become.<\/p>\n
Mostly, I\u2019ve written about what sports was like in those days after the planes hit our buildings, and how much the games mattered when they were being played again.<\/p>\n
\u201cNever forget\u201d will always be part of our litany about that time.<\/p>\n
We will never forget what sports made us feel like in the long, terrible shadow of that terrible day, from Mike Piazza\u2019s home run at old Shea through those truly unforgettable World Series nights later at the old Yankee Stadium.<\/p>\n
So here is one more memory I\u2019ve shared before \u2014 but not for a long time \u2014 about a wonderful guy from our town named Joe Coppo, whom I knew from coaching Little League baseball.<\/p>\n
(Later, by a quirk of fate, his son John and my oldest son, Christopher, would be roommates for a time in New York City.)<\/p>\n
Joe, an old Manhattan University (Manhattan College in his day) ballplayer himself, worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, and died on the 104th floor on Sept. 11, 2001.<\/p>\n
Two weeks later, on a Saturday morning as beautiful and brilliant as the morning of Sept. 11 had been, his funeral was at the church I attend, St. Aloysius.<\/p>\n
Standing in back of the packed church that day, I had no way of knowing that sports was about to provide one more memory to stir the soul.<\/p>\n
Because when it was time for the Presentation of the Gifts during Mass, here came the members of the last team Joe ever coached, an All-Star travel team of 13-year-olds.<\/p>\n
All of the kids were dressed in white uniforms that looked brand new.<\/p>\n
One of them caried the team\u2019s championship trophy, another carried a bat, another carried a bat that had belonged to Joe.<\/p>\n
Then they all made their way solemnly to where Joe\u2019s casket was in front of the altar.<\/p>\n
And somehow the scene made you want to cry and cheer at the same time.<\/p>\n
Later Joe\u2019s widow Pat would tell me this about her husband:<\/p>\n
\u201cI could write chapters about all the tales Joe came home with after a practice or a game, funny, sad, poignant, exciting \u2014 sometimes even tear-jerking. But there was nothing that made Joe smile more than seeing one of his, uh, less athletic players finally get that first hit or catch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maybe one of the All-Stars at this Requiem Mass had once been a player like that.<\/p>\n
But now they were here and, in all the big ways, so was the big bear of a man who used to coach them.<\/p>\n
Brought together one last time by their love of baseball, and love for this man.<\/p>\n
I wrote that day that even if you didn\u2019t know Joe Coppo, you did, because every town has somebody like him.<\/p>\n
Much later Bobby Valentine, who\u2019d grown up in the next town over from ours, would come over on another Saturday morning and help us dedicate Joe Coppo Field.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope the memory of what Joe meant to his community will live forever,\u201d Bobby said.<\/p>\n
Now the field will be there forever.<\/p>\n
Kids are still playing ball at Joe Coppo Field in the spring and summer, and always will be.<\/p>\n
There are so many lovely memorials honoring the victims of Sept. 11 worth knowing about.<\/p>\n
This field is just one more, honoring one more person who didn\u2019t make it home that day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So now Ben Shelton, at 23, still with so much ahead of him in tennis, will try to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[129336,96277,24329,129291,21133,4777,10663,57354,9,11,10,129335,24331],"class_list":["post-345090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-agassi","tag-andy-roddick","tag-arthur-ashe","tag-ben-shelton","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-jalen-brunson","tag-knicks","tag-mike-lupica","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sampras","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}