Kendrick Lamar’s Pulitzer Prize-winning album, DAMN., concludes with a song titled “DUCKWORTH.” On the track, Kendrick tells the story of when his father, Kenny “Ducky” Duckworth, first met the man who later signed Kendrick to his first-ever record deal: Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith. Ducky was working at a KFC, and Tiffith liked robbing such establishments—even robbing this very one a few years prior. One customer was shot. So, when Top Dawg would come into Ducky’s KFC, he’d always make sure the meals were on the house. This benevolent yet strategic decision ultimately persuaded Tiffith away from holding up that restaurant a second time.

You take two strangers and put ’em in random predicaments

Give ’em a soul, so they can make their own choices and live with it

Twenty years later, them same strangers, you make ’em meet again

Inside recording studios where they reapin’ their benefits

Then you start remindin’ them about that chicken incident

Whoever thought the greatest rapper would be from coincidence?

Because if Anthony killed Ducky, Top Dawg could be servin’ life

While I grew up without a father and die in a gunfight

Some coincidences are more incredible than others. A young Ben Shelton is hitting his stride in time to face a seasoned Frances Tiafoe, who built a career off advocating for Black people in tennis like himself. These two are not only the sport’s biggest stars but on the verge of ending a Grand Slam drought for a country that would’ve barred them from competing if they came a few generations too soon.

The inception of tennis in the United States came with segregation. Black people were not allowed to play at the very first United States Tennis Championships. Black people were not believed to have the intellectual capability or class to compete with their white counterparts in a sport like lawn tennis. If it weren’t for trailblazers such as Richard Weir and Althea Gibson, the first-ever Black man and woman to play in a USTA-sanctioned event, it may not have been possible for Shelton and Tiafoe to pick up a racquet. But Shelton and Tiafoe are not in the 2026 US Open semifinals by some mere “fast food restaurant robbery last-minute cancellation”-level coincidence. 

It’s the 23-year-old Shelton’s second final-four appearance in Flushing Meadows and Tiafoe’s third in five years. Even before their recent professional success, the two grew up ensconced in the sport. Shelton has a former world No. 55 player for a father and an older sister who became tennis-obsessed well before he did. Tiafoe slept at times in the childhood tennis club his father worked at. Shelton didn’t take tennis seriously until around 12 years old. Tiafoe became the youngest-ever Orange Bowl winner at just 15. Shelton committed to the University of Florida as a finance major and was planning to red-shirt his freshman year. Tiafoe turned pro before he could legally vote. 

Both had different journeys to this moment. Tiafoe was touted as the savior of American men’s tennis at an age when most are more concerned about not failing a geometry test. For Shelton, he faced the pressure of having a former pro as his father—and later his coach in college. But Shelton was relatively under the radar throughout his junior career. Regardless of respective paths, it led to a historic meeting that cements them as outliers in a sport they are both immensely talented at. 

Frances Tiafoe and Ben Shelton will take part in the first-ever all-Black men’s Grand Slam semifinal. The winner will become the first Black man since Arthur Ashe, half a century ago, to reach the US Open finals. Even through their success, Black players still feel like strangers at events they were not wanted at less than 80 years ago. 

Now onto the tennis! Ben Shelton is coming off the biggest win of his life against Carlos Alcaraz. He snapped a dismal 17-match losing streak to top-three opponents against the defending champ. Granted, it was Alcaraz’s first event in more than five months, and it was clear through hands on knees and throwing up in towels that he still has some work to do on the conditioning front. Nonetheless, he pushed Shelton and made him earn the win that came from the latest-ever finish in US Open history. 

For Tiafoe, it was an opposite quarterfinal feat. Yes, it was a miraculous comeback win, but should it have been? After an extremely poor serving display in the first two sets, Tiafoe found himself looking down the barrel of a 6’4″ Alex Michelsen serving for the match. If it weren’t for two double faults and a bad case of the yips, there’s a strong argument for Tiafoe not being in New York anymore. 

But in the words of 22-time Grand Slam champ Rafael Nadal: “If, if, if doesn’t exist.” 

What does exist is that after an abysmal 2025 season, Tiafoe finds himself back in the semifinals of the US Open. With an understanding that there may not be another after suffering two five-set defeats in both past semifinal appearances, Tiafoe is sure to leave it all out on the court. 

Will what a questionably fit Tiafoe has left in the tank be enough against a Shelton who John McEnroe claimed was returning like the Novak Djokovic—especially against a seven-time Grand Slam champ at that? To be more specific, a slow start could be the beginning and end of Tiafoe’s lifelong US Open title aspirations. 

To echo Owen Lewis here, if Ben can repeat the best tennis of his life for two more matches, the shiny silverware and a bigger-than-sport legacy is cemented. Who knows how many other young Black kids in America will pick up a tennis racquet from this coincidence as well?