US OPEN 2026

Well it's time. And we already have an iconic moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPqOf3qVRqo

(In shorter broadcast form here.)

https://bsky.app/profile/leahreich.com/post/3muflzhuqss2g

Plus Djokovic already out.

I'm liking Alcaraz's new hair. Must have added a stylist to his team.

Shelton, who went out in the 1st round at Wimbledon, opens his first round match here by being broken. Get it together, Ben.

I'm liking Alcaraz's new hair.

he got cornrows a few weeks back and ditched it almost immediately after getting (rightfully) clowned for it online lmao. The longer hair looks great on him though, I agree.

lol

also so long novak

let's go frances

Osaka wearing cornrows as an Iverson tribute looked great however

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/02/alexander-zverev-survives-near-five-hour-marathon-us-open-tennis

Sigh..

Sad Sonego couldn’t close that out. He’s never really reached the heights of Vienna 2020, when he walloped Novak. Now he’s like the 7th or 8th best male player in Italy. Nice to see Gael enjoying himself.

even putting aside how lame he is as a person, Zverev is also very boring to watch play tennis

that strikes me as m/l a compliment cuz it implies technically v sound & usually wins w/o drama.. i seem to recall novak was called boring in the past

Not likely to see any of this live, though - passing a local pub - got to see a couple points from Daniil “all sports are better than tennis, maybe I take up pickleball” Medvedev vs US wildcard Gorzny, who saved a bunch of match points vs top 40 Collignon in r1.

Saw something somewhere about Zverev being first ever Slam top seed (men) who has never been a #1. Pretty sure Becker was top seed at Wimbledon ‘87 so that can’t be right. Anyway, yeah, anyone other than him. Rooting against both top seeds tbh.

Now he’s like the 7th or 8th best male player in Italy.

Strength in depth in Italy is frightening tbh.

Will see what Musetti has got. Glad he's back

didnt watch but michelsen taking out b nak in straights is wildly impressive

Oof, that's a shock. I know the summer Masters were depleted, but Nakashima racked up nine wins in MTL and Cincy.
Shelton has Hurkacz today, that's tricky too.

Long-standing ILX favourite Taylor Townsend going very well indeed.

And what’s up with Jodar? Getting thrashed by Yunchaokete Bu before the rain delay.

musetti laid to rest my concern about facing surging fery out of the gate. looked pretty untroubled.

rooting for a deep run for rinderknech. he's become a real fave of mine over the last couple of years.

hope altmaier can turn it around against svajda. after a rain delay i guess.

and go tay!

I love every bit of success that Taylor Townsend has had

they haven't even revealed the doubles draws yet. is that normal? i can't recall.

https://www.usopen.org/en_US/draws/womens-doubles.html?promo=subnav

The women’s draw is out

y'all need to see this kid with no backhand, it's so insane. He became the youngest ATP-ranked player a few months ago and it seems he'll be competing in the boys' singles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49QMa1SMoqE

I will keep an eye out. Sounds crazy tbh

If Fritz and Cobolli lose here there isn't a single top 10 player left between Zverev and the final. (Come on Tabilo).
Bottom half is holding together nicely, however.

Venus/Serena lost a three hour r1 match last night. Taylor T has Sabalenka next(!)
"Watched" Zheng take out Keys in the 3D animation earlier.

And out goes Fritz, from two sets up vs F Cerundolo. Cobolli was bagelled in set three :/

And there goes Cobolli, out in four to Blockx.

Blimey, I didn’t realise Zheng beat Keys from 0-5 in that third set. I joined at 5-5.

Yeah that was crazy

I was thinking TT-Sab + Med-Foe were dead certs for the Ashe night session tomorrow, but it's Shelton-Tsitsipas + Kalinskaya-Navarro in prime time. Oh well, means I can follow along the day session (also Paul-Alcaraz and Kostyuk-Noskova in daylight hours). Such riches are wasted on the influencers, kick 'em all out. There's never been a year (Open or amateur eras) without a single-handed bh in a Slam semi. All rests on Stefanos now.

Classic Keys (nb I love her but I also know who she is)

Eala vs Jovic was wild tonight — great match

Weirdly, and I assume coincidentally, we got a preview of this contest in the Stars of the Open during Fan Week (it's nice that the fans get a week, and then the event starts and all the fans are priced out) - Jovic won that too. Hope Eala-Jovic is a Slam final soon.

Yeah that Eala-Jovic match was a blast. Both fun to watch.

alcaraz looks incredibly good

Big Foe! Man he was sharp.

The 5-6 point in the 3rd set t/b looked good in the near-live animation! Foe standing stock still at the net afterwards. Or his avatar had frozen.

Zheng is doing the 0-5 to 7-5 thing again! To Swiatek.

And Zheng wins in two.

Amazing

That was quite a match, it was like Swiatek's game just totally deflated. Zheng looked really good once she got past the first five games. Maybe that's just how long she takes to figure out an opponent.

22-minute set for rybakina

i too, as a learner, was once overcome by a karen

great match noskova/sabalenka - aryna gets thru & remains dominant in tiebreaks

damn so michelsen is rreally gonna make a slam semi w/o dropping a set ? clearly we all saw that coming

Not going to be that easy for the Bloomfield Hills Challenger champ of 2026. Here comes Foe.

Blockx-Michelsen final would be something though.

yeah not great that alex hasnt won a game since serving for the match……

Wow. That was exciting! What a comeback for Foe.

Also that hug with Michelsen sobbing into his shoulder was really sweet.

the upcoming quarterfinal between Jessica Pegula and Emma Navarro, dubbed "Big Rich" and "Little Rich" by Chinese fans for their inherited generational wealth

They’re taking tennis back to its roots.

love to see the greatest moment of ben shelton's career best matches of the tournament finishing after 2am

'you cannot be serious'

Insane. I made it thru the first set before bed. Lots of good tennis even in that one. Maybe I’ll catch a replay.

Scheduling at slams is often bad though all matches went the distance across men and women so..

And in the last 3, the player who won the opening set lost the match. Wonder how often that's happened in three quarterfinals in a row.

Crazy that the Shelton v Alcaraz match started at 11:05 pm eastern and therefore went to 3:34 am .

It’s the two session thing. They get to sell out Ashe twice each day. And there have to be two matches in that session, which can’t start before 7 and starts much later sometimes if the day session runs long.
The solution is a single continuous session and if the last match gets pulled to Armstrong or Grandstand because the penultimate match is running late (e.g. beyond 8:30), no biggie, you’ve still seen a day of tennis for your Ashe ticket.
Obv never gonna happen, they’d lose too much money.

Yeah it takes like an hour just to clear out the stadium and let people in for the night session. (I've been on both sides of that process.) Definitely a cash grab. That's why Pegula-Navarro didn't start til like 90 minutes after Tiafoe-Michelsen.

Or we go back to best of 3 for the men as was the case pre-1979 at the USO (I think just first 3-4 rounds tho, so no help here).

But, yeah, that fixed night session is the problem. And the Roland Garros “solution” to this issue (which they introduced by adding a night session in the first place) is just to have a single match. Which is always the men.

Don’t want to give AELTC too much credit for anything but they do seem to know how to run a Slam.

Congratulations to our new WTA #1, Elena Rybakina

She will celebrate with a shrug of the shoulders no doubt

All QFs going the distance so far but can't see that happening with the men's matches today.

lfg rybakina

Love her (her tennis and composure, that's hot)*

Really hope she wins against garbage transphobic shit Sabalenka

* I do not know what she thinks about anything, which is just as well

Good interview with Jim Courier here:

https://defector.com/how-tennis-channels-jim-courier-sees-the-sport?giftLink=45f45d64e1700a8ece1ad62d446718e6

Some wild points in Shelton-Tiafoe. Seems like Karen K had his chances vs Zverev.

Trying to think if I ever saw Shelton's dad play. I did see his Uncle Todd (Witsken) on an outside court at Wimbledon in '89. (Todd passed away before Shelton was born... maybe even before his sister Lisa and Bryan Shelton were married).

Shelton was so powerful and sharp, hope he can maintain that via Zverev. Happy to loudly cheer for a Yank to win the U.S. Open.

Rooting for Shelton but I was hoping Tiafoe could have beaten him especially after having read about how Tiafoe changed his training approach .

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7583197/2026/09/11/frances-tiafoe-us-open-semifinals-tennis/

Yup, he sounds ok.

Never beaten Zverev but he is playing a bag of nerves when he gets near closing these finals out..the crowd might be a factor

My first watch of this year's US open

Rynakina already had a couple of bps..no conversion as Saba hits a couple of excellent winners

xps Yeah I would have loved for Tiafoe to get a shot in the finals, not least because I imagine Shelton will have more chances.

Let's go Rybakina!

Ryba breaks!

Had another BP but saved it. Saba barely surviving this onslaught

And she wins the first set!

Saba has been steadily getting into her serve but there were some skanky 2nd serve returns.

Rybakina has hit some wonderful backhands too

Kind of amazing Rybakina hasn't lost a service game with a first-serve percentage under 30. Just doing everything else really well.

Yeah Rybakina having a low% and dominating like she has (not faced a BP that 1st set) is remarkable

She should've broken Saba there...maybe a turning point to come

Scoreboard pressures nearly got to Ryba. Sees off two SPs from Saba.

5-5

6-5. Saba keeps surviving. At least she will get to a TB

It's so close, really feels like it deserves a third set.

And that's what we get!

Mostly scoreboard pressure, that

But Saba really hung in there.

No probs

Sabalenka having Jake fucking Paul in her friends and family box for the final just makes this outcome that much better.

Super strong match from Rybakina, well earned.

Sabalenka has left the court, and is instead sitting courtside with her coaching team and fiance, and she looks absolutely sick to her stomach. None of them are saying a word.

If only Shelton could serve every game, he’d be in good shape. As it is, not looking great.

Won the 3rd, can still do this I think

Nope, not at all.

v buttoned up match for zverev, hes just leveled up this season (and had some draw luck for the major victories)

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/13/elena-rybakina-aryna-sabalenka-us-open-2026-tennis

Interesting piece on Rybakina's coach

Men's game is just v bad below Carlos and Sinner.

So you think Shelton, Auger-Aliassime , and Medvedev are very bad men’s tennis players. That’s interesting.

They're obviously not bad, but apparently they're not good enough to keep Zverev from dominating when Alcaraz and Sinner aren't healthy.

It's been a dire slam season. Zverev just need to show some consistency, and crawling to The French Open gave him the confidence he needed, but he also didn't face any top ten players before the final

Shelton getting the crowd going at the end of the 3rd set and then getting broken and done straight after was pathetic

Saw a graphic today that listed number of top 10 opponents beaten by multiple Slam winners in a season (across the whole season, not just the Slams, or the Slams they won).
Obv Novak's 2015 was top with something ridiculous like 31, then Fed, Rafa, Borg, Mac, Lendl etc etc... all the way down to Zverev bottom. With two.

cant control who you play.. by my count he has only 6 losses this season to anybody not named sinner or alcaraz…

No, of course - not his fault, and he's been good all season. I don't suppose anyone who won Olympic medals in Moscow or LA feels like they're worth less just because of who was missing.
Also, he did have his own injury calamity when he was on the verge of something.

Sinner supposedly back for Beijing, I hear. He'll need the points to hold on to year-end #1.

Yeah you can only beat what's in front of you, which is my point.

Women's game is much more competitive and interesting. Rybakina has two slams this year, and has Sabalenka's number, but Sabalenka or Swiatek haven't gone on to establish any kind of domination, partly because women's game has too many good players who win slams. Gauff, Noskova, Andreeva, and you can see lots to come from the likes of Eala, Jovic. I could go on and on.

I think only maybe Musetti can get perhaps get going but he was injured a lot this year. Really slim pickings.

Just read this piece, making some of the same points (once we get to the actual tennis lol)

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/sep/14/us-open-2026-worst-grand-slam-tournament-in-recent-memory

Wanna see more from Fonseca and Fils next year.