Gauff Looks to Repeat as US Open Champion Amid Tough Competition

Meanwhile, Sabalenka of Belarus enters the tournament with momentum, courtesy of winning on the hard court of the Cincinnati Open.

Coco Gauff of the United States and Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus hold their trophies after Gauff won the U.S. Open tennis tournament women's singles final match at the USTA National Tennis Center in New York on Sept. 9, 2023. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

The 2024 U.S. Open is on the horizon, with the world’s best tennis players descending upon the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y, for the final Grand Slam of the year. Play begins on Aug. 26, with the women’s singles final taking place on Sep. 7.

This has been one of the most competitive seasons in Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) history, with three different women winning the first three majors, in addition to a fourth winning gold at the Paris Olympics.

Yet, none of those four are the defending U.S. Open champion, which makes this year’s tournament edition much more intriguing with so many viable contenders. Coco Gauff is the reigning U.S. Open champion after winning her first Grand Slam last year, while the top-ranked player in the world, Iga Swiatek, won this tournament in 2022 and is the No. 1 seed for the 2024 U.S. Open.

Swiatek has held the No. 1 ranking in the world since November 2023 and boasts a 47-5 singles record this year. While she won the French Open for the fourth time this summer, Swiatek was knocked out in the third round of both the Australian Open and Wimbledon. Swiatek has established herself as arguably the best active player on clay, winning 89 percent of her matches, but that percentage drops down to 79 percent on hard courts.

Poland's Iga Swiatek celebrates after beating Slovakia's Anna Karolina Schmiedlova in their women's singles Bronze Medal tennis match on Court Philippe-Chatrier at the Roland-Garros Stadium during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Paris on August 2, 2024. Miguel Medina/ AFP via Getty Images

The Pole doesn’t enter this Grand Slam in the best of form as she’s failed to win any of her last three tournaments. That contrasts with her first 10 tournaments in 2024 when she won half of them and never went two straight events without a victory. This is the third year in a row that Swiatek enters the U.S. Open as the No. 1 seed, prevailing in 2022 and being knocked out in the fourth round by the No. 20 seed in 2023.

After finishing runner-up to Gauff in last year’s United States Open, Aryna Sabalenka has earned the No. 2 seed in this year’s tournament. She is the reigning back-to-back Australian Open, so she knows how to win major tournaments on hard courts, and Sabalenka is the only player besides Swiatek to be ranked No. 1 in the world over the last two-and-a-half years. The Belarusian enters this tournament with momentum, courtesy of winning on the hard court of the Cincinnati Open just a week ago, knocking off Swiatek in the semifinals in the process.

Over her last seven Grand Slams, Sabalenka has advanced to at least the semifinals six times, but she hasn’t had the best success against similarly ranked players. She has a winning record against just one of the other top-five-ranked players in the world, and overall, she sports a 15-17 record against those players.

The defending champion and highest-ranked American is Gauff at No. 3. She began the year with a win in New Zealand, but it’s been a trek since then. That remains Gauff’s only singles victory as she bowed out in the semis of the first two majors, was eliminated in the fourth round at Wimbledon, and, after being chosen as flag bearer for Paris 2024, was knocked out in the third round of the Olympics.

Gauff has sporadically played doubles this year and even added mixed doubles to her repertoire at the Olympics, and you have to wonder if all of this additional tennis is catching up with her. The 20-year-old’s last four events saw her eliminated by double-digit seeds three times before shockingly losing to an unseeded player in her U.S. Open tune-up in Cincinnati. She’ll attempt to leverage the fan support in Queens and become the first women’s player to repeat at the U.S. Open since Serena Williams three-peated from 2012-14.

Other Americans who could end up in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Sep. 7 include Danielle Collins and Jessica Pegula. Collins, 30, has already announced that she’ll retire at season’s end, but she may want to reconsider seeing how she’s performed this year. She’s won two WTA titles, which matches the number she won over the first eight years of her career combined.

Jessica Pegula of the United States returns a shot against Elina Svitolina of Ukraine during their Women's Singles Third Round match on Day Six of the 2023 US Open at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in the Flushing neighborhood of the Queens borough of New York City, on Sept. 2, 2023. Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

Meanwhile, no one will garner as much local support as Pegula, seeing as she was born and raised in New York and her parents own the Buffalo Bills. Across her 22 Grand Slam tournaments, she’s maxed out in the quarterfinals—making that round six times—but never reaching any further. However, her best two U.S. Open finishes have come in the last two years, during which she made the fourth round and the quarterfinals.

One player who is unseeded and needed a wild card entry to make the U.S. Open draw is two-time U.S. Open victor Naomi Osaka. Due to a couple of hiatuses from the tour, including being on maternity leave, Osaka hasn’t won any event since 2021. She’s just 16-14 overall in 2024, never advancing past the quarterfinals in any tournament. She’s clearly still getting her legs underneath her but will be on her favorite surface, a hard court.

All four of Osaka’s Grand Slam titles have been won on hard courts, as she’s won 80 percent of her Grand Slam matches on hard surfaces versus 57 percent on all other surfaces. As the only multi-time U.S. Open champion on the women’s side, Osaka can’t be counted out, and she’ll open her 2024 U.S. Open against 10-seed Jelena Ostapenko, who Osaka owns a 1-0 record against.