The U.S. Open 2024 begins Monday in New York City, and the draws for the men’s and women’s singles are intriguing — and have thrown up some blockbuster first-round matches.
The Athletic’s tennis writers, Matthew Futterman and Charlie Eccleshare, analyze the match-ups, as well as offering some of their picks for the best matches of the opening days.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic evades his two biggest rivals, again
Novak Djokovic, the greatest tennis player of the modern era by the numbers, also has some of the greatest luck in tennis.
For a third consecutive Grand Slam, Djokovic has landed on the opposite side of the draw from Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, the two players who have proven themselves to be his equal or even a little better this year, especially in the Grand Slams.
Sinner won in Australia. Alcaraz won the French Open and Wimbledon. Djokovic arrives in New York without winning one of the last three Slams for the first time in 14 years.
And just like in Paris and London, he will not meet Sinner or Alcaraz until the final, if at all. If you’re 37 years old and coming off a few weeks’ rest, following an exhausting triumph at the Olympics, that’s very good fortune. Beating Sinner and Alcaraz back-to-back in a semi and a final would be a tall order for…
