A peek at the future

 I don't know if we saw what American men's tennis is going to look like for the next decade or so last night. But I do know it at least looks like something now.

Frances Tiafoe did not beat Carlos Alcaraz in a men's U.S. Open semifinal in New York, and he wept because he didn't. He needn't have, but you know what they say about supreme effort. The more supreme, the more bitter defeat goes down.

Because, listen, for almost four-and-a-half hours, he and Alcaraz put on a show, and the country watched in a way it hasn't watched in awhile, America being as chauvinistic as any nation when it comes to its sporting tastes. Give us an American to root for, and we'll watch; give us a Swiss, a Spaniard and a Serb, and we'll pay only cursory attention even though the Swiss (Roger Federer), the Spaniard (Rafael Nadal) and the Serb (Novak Djokovic) have made their era the greatest in the history of the sport.

Three players, playing at the same time, with 20-plus Grand Slam titles each. We may never see anything close to it again.

Ah, but Tiafoe ...

He's something we haven't seen since the days of McEnroe and Connors and Agassi and Sampras and Roddick: An American man who can play the game off its feet.

An American black man, to take it a step further.

When Tiafoe stepped on the court last night, he was the first black American man to play in a U.S. Open semifinal since Arthur Ashe half a century ago. Half ... a ... century. And what did he do?

Pushed a 19-year-old phenom many think is the future of men's tennis to the wall.

In the end Alcaraz won 6-7. 6-3, 6-1, 6-7, 6-3, and even other athletes in other places stopped to watch. Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce tweeted about it, out there in Kansas City. Russell Wilson weighed in from Denver. NBA star Bradley Beal from D.C. And Chris Evert -- who tweeted "you made us proud," at Tiafoe, which is a bit like being knighted by the queen.

He deserved all of it. And, at 24, he should have lots of chances to deserve it all again.

Consider his story: This is a young man who learned the game at a tennis facility where his dad, an immigrant from Sierra Leone, was the maintenance man.  Lived in a converted office at the facility for awhile. Taught himself the game with whatever equipment was lying around. Didn't have a racquet of his own until he was 12 years old.

Then came the U.S. Open, where he upset Nadal, made history and turned the event into an Event with his heart and passion.

Can't wait for the second act.