New York opens its doors to the tennis world for the next fortnight as the best in the game head to the Big Apple for the US Open, the final Grand Slam of 2024 and one many think is the most wide open of the year too.
Novak Djokovic will be the player who heads to New York as the defending champion and he will be looking to make a successful defence of his title. Plenty of players will line up believing that they can get their hands on this trophy though.
Recent Winners
2023 – Novak Djokovic
2022 – Carlos Alcaraz
2021 – Daniil Medvedev
2020 – Dominic Thiem
2019 – Rafael Nadal
2018 – Novak Djokovic
2017 – Rafael Nadal
2016 – Stan Wawrinka
2015 – Novak Djokovic
2014 – Marin Cilic
The Format
The usual Grand Slam rules apply for this tournament with every match the best of five sets throughout. The slams are now all as one with a final set being decided by a match tiebreak should it reach 6-6. There have been a few big name withdrawals but 128 men have made it into the draw and have already been placed into the bracket. The tournament is a straight knockout with the champion crowned on the second Sunday of the event.
Top Quarter
Jannik Sinner confirmed his status as the world number one when he won in Cincinnati a week prior to the US Open and despite all the drug revelations which have come out since then he remains in that spot in the rankings and is the top seed in this draw as a result. He is the leading seed in the top quarter and the Australian Open champions is on a collision course with Daniil Medvedev in what would be a tasty quarter final. Six other seeds will be out to stop that from happening. They are Flavio Cobolli, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Tommy Paul, Arthur Fils and Nicolas Jarry so this is a competitive quarter.
It becomes an even more competitive quarter when you consider that the Winston Salem winner Lorenzo Sonego is also in the section as an unseeded player. Other notable players in this section include the former champion Stanislas Wawrinka, the man Sonego beat in the Winston Salem final in Alex Michelsen and Mackenzie McDonald, those latter two looking to make the most of home crowds this week. Thanasi Kokkinakis and Max Purcell are capable of winning a few matches too.
Second Quarter
This is the section where the Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz will go in search of a third successive Grand Slam title having won the French Open prior to that. Alcaraz won here in 2022 so he knows how to go the course and distance which might not be a good thing for potential quarter final opponent Hubert Hurkacz. The other six seeds in this quarter are Matteo Arnaldi, Karen Khachanov, Alex de Minaur, Sebastian Korda, Alejandro Tabilo and the British number one Jack Draper.
Denis Shapovalov finds himself among the unseeded fraternity in this quarter of the draw but he’ll be hoping to get into the deeper stages of the event. Zhizhen Zhang is having a decent year while David Goffin and Borna Coric will be looking to revive former glories. Fabio Fognini is no stranger to New York while Tomas Machac is having a decent season. Dan Evans is another British runner in this quarter. Marcos Giron will be looking to use the home crowds to his advantage while Jordan Thompson has been hitting the ball well in recent months.
Third Quarter
The former US Open finalist Alexander Zverev is the highest seed in the third quarter of the draw and if everything goes by the seeding then he would run into Casper Ruud in the quarter final. The other six seeds will know that Ruud has looked a little vulnerable of late though and that will interest them. They are Francisco Cerundolo, Lorenzo Musetti, Holger Rune, Taylor Fritz, Ugo Humbert and Alexander Bublik, so there are some big servers in this section of the draw.
Two New York veterans will be in the draw as unseeded players in this section as Gael Monfils and Diego Schwartzman look to find their best form of the past. Jan Choinski from Britain qualified and has been placed in this quarter while Matteo Berrettini will be looking to use his big serve to his advantage over the two weeks. Brandon Nakashima is a home player who will be looking for a big tournament as is Reilly Opelka while Pablo Carreno Busta has been to the semi-final here before and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard can take the racquet out of the hands of anyone when he is on song.
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Bottom Quarter
Novak Djokovic will get his title defence going from the bottom quarter of the draw. His first round match here will be his first on an American hard court since the first part of the year so it will be interesting to see if he can navigate his way through. If he does then he is on a collision course with Andrey Rublev in the quarter final but six seeds are out to stop that from happening. They are the Canadian Open winner Alexei Popyrin, Cincinnati finalist Frances Tiafoe, Ben Shelton, Grigor Dimitrov, Sebastian Baez and Jiri Lehecka.
Among the more recognisable unseeded names in this quarter is the former champion Dominic Thiem, who will be competing in the last Grand Slam of his career over this fortnight. Former Wimbledon semi-finalist Roberto Bautista Agut is in this quarter as well while Jan-Lennard Struff is one of the higher ranked unseeded players in the draw. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, Marton Fucsovics, Arthur Rinderknech and Christopher Eubanks are just some of the other names who could go well.
Outright Betting
The draw looks to have fallen brilliantly for Alexander Zverev and while in an ideal world we would be getting double figures in terms of price about the German, I would rather take the 9/1 knowing that the draw has worked out the way that it has. Casper Ruud is probably the seed he wanted in his quarter and of the lower seeds in it there isn’t really anyone who is going to put the wind up the former finalist. The fact that Zverev has been to the final here is a positive and with the drug scandal hanging over the Jannik Sinner head and a hectic year looking like it is catching up with Carlos Alcaraz along with doubts over whether Novak Djokovic is a) fully fit and b) still motivated after winning Olympic gold, this looks to be a great chance for Zverev to win a maiden Grand Slam title.
Frances Tiafoe looked like he was returning to something close to his best in Cincinnati last week and that was perfectly well timed ahead of his home Grand Slam where he has made the semi-final and the quarter final in the last two years. Two years ago he took Carlos Alcaraz the distance before eventually going down in five sets in the last four while last year he ran into a hot serving Ben Shelton. Tiafoe is in the quarter with Novak Djokovic so that isn’t ideal but if he can come through a potential clash with him, or an Alexei Popyrin or Jan-Lennard Struff gets rid of him before then, then there is another decent run from a player who clearly thrives in New York. At 80/1 I’ll pay to see just how deep he goes.
Quarter Betting
I’m not massive on anything in the quarter betting but I feel like I’ve got to get involved in the Carlos Alcaraz quarter because the Spaniard must be running on fumes having made the final of the French Open, Wimbledon and the Olympics and it has certainly looked that way recently. He didn’t play very well at all in defeat to Gael Monfils in Cincinnati, his only summer hard court match. There are doubts over him and there certainly are over Hubert Hurkacz and Alex de Minaur.
Hurkacz was told he wouldn’t play again this year after knee surgery but has defied the doctors’ predictions while de Minaur is coming back from the injury he sustained at Wimbledon this week. I don’t trust Seb Korda but that is fine because Karen Khachanov is 25/1 to win this quarter. In the last 24 months he has been to the semi-finals here and at the Australian Open so he knows how to win a quarter in a Grand Slam. He won in Doha earlier in the season so the hotter and faster the better for the Russian. He has gone a little quiet recently but back on a fast hard court I think he can do some damage here.
Tips
Back A.Zverev to win US Open (e/w) for a 2/10 stake at 10.00 with Betfred (1/2 1-2)
Back F.Tiafoe to win US Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with Bet365 (1/2 1-2)
Back K.Khachanov to win Quarter 2 for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Betfred
