Three For The Show: Alcaraz, Djokovic and Sinner Look To Peak At The 2024 US Open

Sinner Goes Steps Into US Open Winning The Title In Cincinnati

 

Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic have been the dominant performers of the past two Grand Slam seasons, each claiming three major titles, the past two US Open crowns among them. The lone unclaimed Slam over that span, this year’s Australian Open, went to Jannik Sinner, who currently resides atop the world rankings.

Together, these three enter the coming Flushing fortnight as the overwhelming favorites to win the 2024 US Open crown, continuing a run of dominance Djokovic began long ago and that the younger two have recently joined to great effect.

Here’s a closer look at each man’s form entering the Open, as well as their hotly contested rivalries—ready to add another chapter in New York.

The players

For Alcaraz, a US Open title would cap an all-time season. It would be his third major of the year, making him just the seventh player in the Open Era to accomplish that feat, alongside Rod Laver, Jimmy Connors, Mats Wilander, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Djokovic. And he would join Laver (1969) and Nadal (2010) as the only men to win the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open in the same campaign.

The Spaniard, though, is coming off a crushing loss to Djokovic in the Olympic gold-medal match, and he followed that up with an uncharacteristically poor performance against Gael Monfils in Cincinnati. The result is that Alcaraz, while undeniably estimable on the surface, has not won a hard-court match since defeating Lorenzo Musetti in the round of 16 in Miami, some five months ago.

Coming off his Olympic title, Djokovic skipped Montreal and pulled out of Cincinnati. That means he has not even played a hard-court match since Indian Wells, where he lost in the third round, and has won just one match on cement since Sinner bounced him in the Australian Open semis.

Still, it is foolhardy to question Djokovic’s hard-court bona fides, which likely rank as the greatest in tennis history. He has won an Open Era-record 71 hard-court titles (a mark he shares with Federer) and 14 hard-court majors (the most of any man), numbers that strain credulity.

Unlike his two rivals, Sinner didn’t play in the Olympics, sidelined by an ill-timed case of tonsillitis. He looked rusty upon his return, falling to Andrey Rublev in the Montreal quarterfinals, but rebounded beautifully in Cincinnati, turning the tables on Rublev en route to his fifth tournament title of the season.

Sinner has been the world’s best player on hard courts over the past 12 months, his punishing ground strokes well-suited to the surface’s consistent return. In addition to his victories in Cincinnati and Melbourne, the Italian won 2024 hard-court titles in Rotterdam and Miami, with a loss to Alcaraz in the Indian Wells semis spoiling an otherwise immaculate start to the season. Sinner also closed 2023 with hard-court crowns in Beijing and Vienna—meaning he has won six of the last 11 hard-court tournaments he’s entered—and a Davis Cup championship run that featured victories over Djokovic, Alex de Minaur and tricky Top 30 player Tallon Griekspoor.

The rivalries

Boding best for US Open fans is how often the three men have faced each other in recent years, and how remarkably good those matches have been.

Alcaraz and Djokovic have squared off in the last two Wimbledon finals, both won by Alcaraz—the 2023 version considered one of the best matches of the year, trailing perhaps only their remarkable Cincinnati final (a grueling three-setter won by Djokovic that stretched nearly four hours)—as well as in the 2023 French Open semifinals and at this year’s Olympics, won by the Serb, 7-6(3), 7-6(2). Overall, Djokovic leads their head-to-head, 4-3.

Alcaraz, 21, and Sinner, who turned 23 last week, have already established their rivalry as one of the game’s most riveting. They have played nine times, with Alcaraz holding a 5-4 edge, and only three of those have been straight-set affairs. Their 2022 US Open quarterfinal was among the top tilts of that year’s tournament (revenge for Alcaraz after falling to Sinner in four sets at that year’s Wimbledon), and they played another scintillating five-setter in this year’s French Open semifinals, also won by Alcaraz.

While the least heralded of the rivalries, Djokovic and Sinner have also staged some top-flight matches, most notably their round-robin encounter at the 2023 ATP Finals, won by Sinner, 7-5, 6-7(5), 7-6(2). Overall, Djokovic leads the series, 4-3—including coming from two sets down to defeat the Italian at 2022 Wimbledon—but Sinner has won three of the past four.

The rundown

Certainly, 2020 finalist Alexander Zverev and 2021 champion and two-time runner-up Daniil Medvedev loom as legitimate contenders for the title, and plenty of potential spoilers loom in the men’s draw, among them the American quintet of Taylor Fritz, Sebastian Korda, Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe.

But at the end of the fortnight, the common wisdom has one of the top three standing front and center on the winner’s podium—whether that’s a third Grand Slam championship this year for Alcaraz, a Grand Slam record 25th title for Djokovic or a second hard-court major of the year for Sinner.

- Author: E.J. Crawford, USOPEN.org