The top draws: Who are the favourites at the US Open?

The more fancied stars have all taken a back seat over the last couple of months and that should make the last Major a fun affair

There’s a heightened whiff of unpredictability around this US Open on either side of the singles draw, and a cursory glance at the champions of the last two 1000 hard-court tournaments across gender exemplifies that. Borna Coric (Cincinnati), Pablo Carreno Busta (Montreal), Caroline Garcia (Cincinnati) and Simona Halep (Toronto) wouldn’t exactly make the favourites’ list for New York nor can be considered players with a natural liking for hard courts.

Serena Williams practices ahead of the 2022 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York. (AFP)

Yet here they are, heading into the season’s final Grand Slam starting next week with precious match wins and unfancied titles on the surface under their belt. The more fancied stars—the injury-struck Rafael Nadal, the missing-in-USA Novak Djokovic, the lesser-menacing Iga Swiatek—have all taken a back seat over the last couple of months, providing more context (and hope) for players with recent hard-court results to leave a mark at Flushing Meadows.

While a relatively open field among the women is more of a given lately, it also appears to be the case with the men to an extent this time. Among the top three players with the highest win percentage on hard courts this season on the ATP tour, neither has made it past the quarter-finals of a hard-court tournament after Wimbledon. Nadal (90.9%, 20-2 win-loss record) hasn't even played a competitive match since withdrawing before his semi-final at the All England Club, while both Jannik Sinner (79.2%, 19-5) and Carlos Alcaraz (77.8%, 14-4) have been more consistent on the surface at the beginning of the year. That said, the two young guns have shown enough spark this season to light up the US Open stage.

Ditto with Nick Kyrgios, whose 17 wins from 22 hard-court matches this season is the kind of consistency stat that has been missing from his CV all these years. The opinion-dividing Australian solidified his Wimbledon final run with a title triumph at the ATP 500 Citi Open earlier this month (in singles and doubles, by the way).

Kyrgios also beat world No. 1 Daniil Medvedev in the Round of 32 at Montreal. The defending US Open champion has blown hot and cold since returning from a forced exile with Wimbledon's ban on Russian players. Seven of his 23 hard-court wins this season have come during the period, which includes a title in Los Cabos but also defeats to Kyrgios and Stefanos Tsitsipas in the Cincinnati semi-final.

Tsitsipas sits 12th on that hard-court win list with an unflattering 21-9 record. The Greek’s inability to get past Coric in the Cincinnati final, after impressive outings against Medvedev and the big-serving John Isner, raises further questions about the world No 5’s temperament as the pressure matches come calling.

No such complexities at the moment for Coric, who leapfrogged from 152nd to 29th in the world rankings with the Cincinnati title. Six of the Croatian's seven hard-court wins this season came in Cincinnati alone. All of those victories though were against top-50 players; the standouts being against Nadal (Round of 32), Felix Auger-Aliassime (quarter-finals) and Tsitsipas (final).

Plenty such potential dark horse candidates in the fray among the women. Especially given how the leader of the pack, seemingly unconquerable a couple of months ago, has turned vulnerable. After notching up a fine 37-match win streak, Swiatek has lost as much as she has won in her last eight matches starting with the third-round loss at Wimbledon. The Pole, however, still has the highest number of hard-court wins this season, followed by Halep, Madison Keys and Paula Badosa.

The American Keys has had some big results recently, overcoming Swiatek and reigning Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina back-to-back in Cincinnati before getting halted by Petra Kvitova in the semi-finals. That the Frenchwoman Garcia, who came through the qualifying rounds of the WTA 1000 hard-court event, managed to beat the experienced Czech in straight sets for the title reiterates how wide open the scenario truly is.

Seventh seed Halep is perhaps the odd one out from the women's top 10 seeds with form on the surface as well as Grand Slam pedigree behind her. The two-time Major winner was the surprise champion in Toronto a couple of weeks ago, but a thigh injury that forced her to pull out during the Cincinnati Masters did spoil the after-party.