MADRID, 25 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Spanish tennis player Carlos Alcaraz will be one of the serious candidates to fight for victory in the US Open, the fourth and last ‘Grand Slam’ of the season, to which the Murcia native arrives with little preparation but after a few months where the joys have been above the disappointments.
The El Palmar native will start Flushing Meadows as the third seed behind Italian Jannik Sinner, who will be in the spotlight after his acquittal after testing positive twice in March, and Serbian Novak Djokovic, the defending champion. Winner in 2022 in New York and semi-finalist last year, Alcaraz will be in the mix again despite his short preparation compared to other rivals.
The winner of four Grand Slams has arrived in the Big Apple, which will surely host, with the permission of the Davis Cup, the last major event of 2024, where the Spaniard has undoubtedly been one of its main protagonists. Champion on the clay of Roland Garros in May, he conquered the grass of Wimbledon weeks later and ended the summer with a silver medal at the Paris Olympic Games.
The second success in the French capital was even more important for the former world number one after the fact, as it initially caused him pain and frustration at the chance of being crowned Olympic champion. Djokovic, who he had beaten in London weeks earlier, blocked his path and will now try to take revenge at this US Open where both could only meet in a hypothetical final.
Alcaraz has not played much since the Games. He skipped the Masters 1000 in Montreal (Canada) and was at the Cincinnati (United States), where he did not get past the first match, defeated by the Frenchman Gael Monfils, with poor play and a bad image after destroying a racket due to frustration. He was quick to apologize for this incident before arriving at this latest ‘Grand Slam’, once again short of preparation, something that, as he himself took care to remember, is not something that worries him too much because he already showed at Roland Garros and Wimbledon that it does not affect him too much.
In principle, Alcaraz will not be able to lose his way too much in this tournament, where he will start against a qualifier, the Australian Li Tu, world number 222. From there, a more complex path with possible clashes with the Canadian, who will arrive with competitive rhythm after overcoming the qualifying phase, before Denis Shapovalov, the British Jack Draper, his executioner on the grass of Queen’s, or the American Sebastian Korda in the round of 16.
Poland’s Hubert Hurkcaz or Australia’s Alex de Minaur could appear in the quarter-finals, while in the semi-finals, as happened at Roland Garros, he could meet world number one, Italian Jannik Sinner, in the eye of the storm for not having been sanctioned despite testing positive twice last March during the Masters 1000 in Indian Wells (United States).
On the other hand, Novak Djokovic will be looking to win his 25th Grand Slam in New York, where he has won four times, and become the only man or woman in history with this number. The Serbian arrives strengthened in his spirit after finally achieving the long-awaited Olympic gold and will try to defend his title, something that no one has achieved at the US Open since the Swiss Roger Federer chained triumphs between 2004 and 2008, so as not to end up without a ‘major’ for the first time since 2017.
In addition to these three names, the list of favourites includes Russian Daniil Medvedev, champion in New York in 2021 and also a finalist in 2019 and last year, and German Alexander Zverev, runner-up in 2020 and still looking to make his debut in a Grand Slam.
GAUFF DEFENDS TITLE, BADOSA, SPANISH TRIBUTE
As for the women’s tournament, American Coco Gauff will be in charge of defending her throne in a ‘major’ that has distributed its winners well in recent years and where no one has repeated a title since Serena Williams, winner between 2012 and 2014.
Since then, there have been nine different champions, with only Japanese Naomi Osaka the only one capable of winning on more than one occasion (2018 and 2020). The Polish world number one Iga Swiatek won in 2022, but she is in a weak moment since her conquest of Roland Garros, including the Olympic Games, and that increases the favouritism of the rest, including the Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka, champion in Cincinnati and second seed.
The best Spanish asset in the women’s draw will be Paula Badosa, who has resurged during the summer. Her withdrawal from Paris 2024 has allowed her to recover her best physical and tennis sensations, with a title in Washington and semi-finals in Cincinnati, which has allowed her to land in New York as a top seed, a condition she hopes to take advantage of to go as far as possible in a ‘major’ where she has historically struggled.