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Djokovic broke Alcaraz again to force the 5th set
The 2023 Wimbledon men’s final heads to the fifth set as Novak Djokovic once again breaks Carlos Alcaraz’s serve.
Top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz, the 2022 men’s champion at Flushing Meadows, and the No. 6 seed Jannik Sinner could meet again in the quarterfinals. It was the round in which Alcaraz’s thrilling five-set victory over Sinner last year ended at 2:50 a.m., the latest finish in US Open history.
Instead of a public drawing ceremony, the US Tennis Association has held the brackets for women’s and men’s singles behind closed doors in recent years and did so again on Thursday, in when The Associated Press was invited to have a reporter in a room at Arthur Ashe Stadium. as an observer.
Play in the final Grand Slam event of the season begins on Monday.
Djokovic, 36, from Serbia, who has won three of his men’s-record 23 Grand Slam titles in New York, could not enter the tournament a year ago because unvaccinated foreign nationals were banned. -an to fly to the United States. He returned to the country for the first time in two years to play in the hard-court tuneup event in Cincinnati, where he defeated Alcaraz in a thrilling final last week that lasted nearly four hours.
In the first round next week, Djokovic will face Alexandre Muller, 26, from France, who is ranked 85th and will make his main-draw debut at Flushing Meadows. Muller lost in the opening round of qualifying in 2021 and 2022. He hasn’t had much luck in the Grand Slam draws recently, having to face Alcaraz at Wimbledon and Sinner at the French Open.
Gauff, the No. 6 seed, defeated Swiatek en route to the Cincinnati title — a significant victory for the 19-year-old American who is 0-7 and has lost all 14 sets to the 22-year-old from Poland, including the 2022 French Open final. Gauff, who is 11-1 since a first-round exit at Wimbledon, will open against a player coming off a qualifying tournament and then meet Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva in a rematch from this year’s French Open.
Alcaraz will face Germany’s Dominik Koepfer in the first round. Koepfer reached the fourth round at Flushing Meadows in 2019.
Along with Alcaraz-Sinner, the other potential men’s quarterfinals are 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev vs. No. 8 Andrey Rublev at the top of the bracket and No. 2 Djokovic vs. No. 7 Stefanos Tsitsipas, and No. 4 Holger Rune vs. 2022 runner-up Casper Ruud at the bottom.
Tsitsipas starts against Milos Raonic, the 2016 Wimbledon runner-up who is ranked as high as No. 3 but was out of the tour for almost two full years due to injuries before returning in June.
In addition to Swiatek-Gauff, possible women’s quarterfinals are No. 4 Elena Rybakina vs. No. 8 Maria Sakkari in the top half and No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka against 2022 runner-up Ons Jabeur and No. 3 Jessica Pegula vs. No. 7 Caroline Garcia below.
Pegula, who is 0-6 in Grand Slam quarterfinals, will face Italy’s Camila Giorgi in the first round.
Venus Williams, who has won two of her seven Grand Slam singles titles at the US Open but needs a wild-card invitation to compete this season at age 43, starts against Spain’s Paula Badosa, who is ranked No. 2 last year but now No. 46.
Caroline Wozniacki, another former No. 1-ranked player and major champion in need of a wild card, attracted to meet a qualifier in his return to Grand Slam tennis after a three-year retirement. Wozniacki, who won the 2018 Australian Open and was twice runner-up at Flushing Meadows, will play two-time Wimbledon champion Petra Kvitova in the second round.