Things never quite go according to script in New York. Serena Williams entered the 2015 US Open ready to accomplish the only thing she hadn’t: a calendar Grand Slam. Instead, she lost to Roberta Vinci in the semis, a player against whom she had never even dropped a set. Novak Djokovic tried the same in 2021 and wobbled all the way to the finals before he got blown out in straight sets by Daniil Medvedev.
If a player is going to make an out-of-nowhere run at a Slam, it’ll probably be in Queens. Over the past 15 years, 18 players have won their first and only Slam title (to date): 10 at the US Open and eight at the other three Slams (Australian Open, French Open and Wimbledon) combined. For seven straight years, either the men’s or women’s champion (or, in 2021, both) was a first-timer.
The favorites list heading into this year’s New York fortnight is a familiar one: Carlos Alcaraz, Djokovic and Jannik Sinner — aka the winners of the past nine Slams (and the 2024 Olympic gold and silver medals) — are the betting favorites on the men’s side, while Aryna Sabalenka (the winner of two straight Australian Opens and a semifinalist at three straight US Opens) and Iga Swiatek (the 2022 US Open winner and five-time Slam champ) lead the way on the women’s side. That all makes perfect sense. But the real favorite is absolute chaos. Let’s talk about some of the biggest and most interesting names in this year’s field.
Note: Within each section below, players are listed in order of their ESPN BET title odds.
The favorites
Carlos Alcaraz
ESPN BET odds: +185 | Tennis Abstract odds: 14%
First potential top-10 opponent: No. 7 Hubert Hurkacz or No. 10 Alex De Minaur (quarterfinals)
The No. 3 seed, Alcaraz’s odds got a little bit worse after he landed in the same half of the draw as Sinner for the third straight Slam, but he’s won 42 of his past 45 Slam matches, two in a row at Slams against both Djokovic and Sinner. Alcaraz is the current master of the best-of-five-sets format, and if he manages to win the US Open this year, he would become the first man to ever win five Slam titles before his 22nd birthday.
Novak Djokovic
ESPN BET odds: +210 | Tennis Abstract odds: 29%
First potential top-10 opponent: No. 6 Andrey Rublev or No. 8 Grigor Dimitrov…
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