The 2024 US Open begins on Monday in New York City, and the draws for the men’s and women’s singles are exciting – and have produced some thrilling first-round matches.
The athleteTennis writers Matthew Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare analyze the pairings and give some of their tips for the best matches of the opening days.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic once again escapes his two biggest rivals
Novak Djokovic, the greatest tennis player of modern times in terms of numbers, is also the luckiest in tennis.
In a third Grand Slam in a row, Djokovic ended up on the other side of the draw from Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the two players who have proven to be his equal or even slightly superior, especially in the Grand Slams this year.
Sinner won in Australia. Alcaraz won the French Open and Wimbledon. Djokovic comes to New York without having won any of the last three Grand Slam tournaments for the first time in 14 years.
And just like in Paris and London, he will not face Sinner or Alcaraz until the final, if at all. When you are 37 years old and have a few weeks off after a grueling triumph at the Olympics, that is a great blessing. Beating Sinner and Alcaraz in a semi-final and a final back to back would be a huge challenge for anyone these days – even Djokovic.
Djokovic hung up the phone at last year’s tournament after Ben Shelton dropped him (Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
Naomi Osaka has the opposite of luck
While Djokovic was sprinkled with fairy dust in the draw all season, Naomi Osaka carried the exact opposite with her.
Caroline Garcia in the first round in Australia. Iga Swiatek in the second round in Paris. Wimbledon was looking pretty good until she met a hot Emma Navarro in the second round. Osaka, who returns from maternity leave after giving birth to her first child in July 2023, will face Jelena Ostapenko in the first round.
GO DEEPER
Naomi Osaka, The Comeback Interview: A Story About Pregnancy, Fear and a Ballerina
Ostapenko, the No. 10 seed, is a fearless, tough player who may like the feel of Osaka’s hard, flat ball. They have only played each other once – Osaka won, but that was on clay eight years ago, so it’s not a crystal ball. Osaka was, and perhaps still is, one of the best hard-court players in the world, winning the US Open and the Australian Open twice.
Her plan was to make her comeback in New York a real success. Ostapenko was to pose a big challenge right away.
Osaka made headlines with her win over Serena Williams at the 2018 US Open (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
Coco Gauff is waiting for her chance to overcome her crisis
The best news for Coco Gauff is that she is playing on the opposite side of Swiatek, who has beaten her 11 times out of 12. They will not face each other unless both players reach the final.
Since the French Open, Gauff has not shown the form that would justify this mindset. She lost in the fourth round of Wimbledon and the third round at the Olympics. She lost her second match in Canada in the round of 16 and her first match in Cincinnati in the round of 16.
Gauff is Gauff and she’s probably not thinking about what’s going to happen in week two. She’s the queen of not looking ahead, focusing on her next game, not even the one after that.
In the first round, she will face Varvara Gracheva of France. Gracheva is ranked number 66 in the world. She is in the same quarter of the draw as Elina Svitolina, Navarro, who knocked her out at Wimbledon, and Marta Kostyuk, and in the same half as Aryna Sabalenka, who just won Cincinnati.
She has a long, long way to go to Swiatek.
Gauff won the US Open title last year (Al Bello/Getty Images)
Matt Futterman
Matt Futterman’s games worth watching:
Bianca Andreescu vs. Jasmine Paolini (5)
Ben Shelton (13) vs. Dominic Thiem
Reilly Opelka vs. Lorenzo Musetti (18)
Alcaraz and Sinner aim for another semi-final duel
Djokovic’s luck means Alcaraz and Sinner may have to face each other in another important semifinal, a repeat of their epic five-set quarterfinal from two years ago, which Alcaraz won at 2:50 a.m. after five hours of thrilling tennis.
To get there, Sinner may have to beat No. 14 seed American Tommy Paul in the fourth round and then No. 5 seed Daniil Medvedev, who beat him at Wimbledon last month, in the quarterfinals. More importantly, he will have to weather criticism over his recent anti-doping penalty, which promises to be one of the tournament’s defining subplots.
GO DEEPER
What the players’ reaction to Sinner’s doping case says about their confidence in their sport
For Alcaraz, the path to the later rounds looks easier, as the biggest danger for the French Open and Wimbledon winner seems to be one of those increasingly rare days when he loses concentration.
Sinners and Alcaraz’s 2022 highlighted their incredible rivalry at the top of men’s tennis (Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
Emma Raducanu returns to her greatest triumph with a reality check
The 2021 British champion begins with a very tricky match against American Sofia Kenin, herself a Grand Slam winner four years ago in Melbourne. If she wins that match, she is likely to face another local player, No. 6 seed Jessica Pegula, in the second round.
It’s a tough draw for Raducanu, but as she said this year at Wimbledon, where she beat No. 9 seed Maria Sakkari in the third round, she’s often at her best when she’s an underdog. Winning the US Open as a qualifier in 2021 is a pretty good example of that.
But Kenin is developing into a specialist in difficult first-round draws. At Wimbledon 2023, she knocked Coco Gauff out of the tournament and 12 months later she faced Iga Swiatek for the first time and lost in two hard-fought sets.
Raducanu’s triumph was one of the most surprising in the history of the US Open (Elsa/Getty Images)
The draw could have been worse for Raducanu, as she is unseeded, but she has looked more like herself in recent months. At Wimbledon, she reached her first fourth round at a major since her US Open title three years ago and backed that up with a quarterfinal appearance at the Citi Open in Washington, DC a few weeks ago.
A bit of luck for Iga Swiatek?
At Wimbledon, the women’s singles match revolved around the bad luck of No. 1 seed Swiatek, who seemed to be in danger at every turn. This proved to be true when she was knocked out in the third round by Yulia Putintseva, one of tennis’ most feared giant-killers.
This time, fate has been kind to Swiatek, as the 2022 champion will face a qualifier in the first round, possibly another in the second, and most likely 25th seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova in the third round.
GO DEEPER
Why Iga Swiatek’s Wimbledon record is not a simple tale of surface tension
Swiatek could face Danielle Collins in the quarterfinals, which would be a real highlight of the American’s final Grand Slam – especially given the strange turn of events in her last match at the Olympics, where Collins said she told the world number one that she did not need to be “disingenuous” about Collins’ injury-related retirement.
Swiatek couldn’t take the momentum away from Putintseva at Wimbledon (Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
Charlie Eccleshar
Charlie Eccleshare’s games worth watching:
Bianca Andreescu vs. Jasmine Paolini (5)
Ben Shelton (13) vs. Dominic Thiem
Zheng Qinwen (7) versus Amanda Anisimova
Let us know in the comments which pairings you’re looking out for.
(Top photos: Sarah Stier; Elsa/Getty Images)
