The 146th installment of the US Open—tennis’s final Grand Slam of the season—kicked off yesterday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. (We were there for the epic, tragic, late-night, first-round five-set upset of Novak Djokovic at the hands of Mariano Navone, though we wilted and left before Venus Williams’s loss against Sofia Kenin, which ended at 2:01 am.) It returns to action today and for the next two weeks.
If demand for tickets has never been higher; hopes and expectations for players on the courts have never been more topsy-turvy.
Remember when—with the ghost of the so-called Big Three of Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic still lingering—Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner first rose to the cream of the tennis rankings? For a moment, there was a kind of despair induced by how far ahead of the pack Alcaraz and Sinner were running; tennis-watchers logically assumed that the finals of the foreseeable future would feature nobody but the two of them, swinging for the fences in a cosmos of their own creation.
Well, things haven’t quite turned out like that, have they? The two haven’t played each other since April, and with Sinner skipping New York with a knee injury, we won’t see them square off in a Grand Slam this year. Alcaraz, the tournament’s defending men’s champion, is, at long last, back on the tour after months away rehabbing a complicated right-wrist injury, but his match fitness is anything but assured—opening the Open to a host of possibilities.
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Top-seeded Alexander Zverev has the most to gain: With Sinner out, Alcaraz only just back on the scene, and a very kind tournament draw, he would seem to have the easiest path to a championship on either the men’s or women’s sides. Grand Slams being complicated, multifaceted beasts, though, that outcome is anything but assured.
Could an American man step in and stop the 23-year-long title drought? (Andy Roddick was the last American man to win the US Open, in 2003.) It’s certainly possible, with eighth-seeded Ben Shelton and ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz the most obvious contenders. But there is also a small handful of players seeded just a bit lower who are capable of deep, thrilling runs.
Looking for the dark-horse, next-gen, heir-apparent player who could, just maybe, win it all? Watch the early-round matches of 10th-seeded Arthur Fils, who faces Stefanos Tsitsipas today at 11 a.m. Fils plays a thrilling game, no matter the outcome—as does 12th-seeded Rafael Jodar, who kicks off his Open tomorrow. Neither of them will likely win the whole thing, but either of them could.