The final Grand Slam event of the season begins Monday in what should be a fascinating tournament.
With a handful of top seeds sidelined due to injury, and more than a few up-and-coming talents rounding into form as the tennis calendar winds down, there’s no shortage of compelling narratives and potential matchups to follow.
Here are some of them…
Opportunity knocks
With nearly half of the top 10 on the men’s side missing in action due to injuries including the likes of defending champion Stan Wawrinka plus Novak Djokovic, Kei Nishikori and now Milos Raonic, who withdrew with an ongoing wrist injury, the door is open for a fresh face to break through.
Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal will be the biggest names in the tournament, but Nadal—the No. 1 seed—is coming off disappointing hard court outings leading up to the final slam of the season, losing to Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov at the Rogers Cup and Nick Kyrgios at the Cincinnati Open last week. Federer is playing great, and reached the final in Montreal after capturing the Wimbledown crown last month, but the long, gruelling tennis season could take it’s toll on the 38-year-old.
Andy Murray, who was expected to miss the tourney with a hip injury is reportedly going to play after all, but it still leaves the tournament wide open, setting up an opportunity for fresh blood to make a run, similar to 2014 when Nishokori and Milan Cilic squared off in an unexpected finals matchup.
Look for young, rising stars like 20-year-old defending Rogers Cup champ Alexander Zverev, Austria’s Dominic Thiem, Grigor Dmitrov (who just won the U.S. Open lead-up tournament in Cincinnati), France’s Lucas Pouille, Belgium’s David Goffin, and American Jack Sock—all under 26 years of age—to take the opportunity to further make a name for themselves on tennis’ biggest stage.
If the warm-up tournament is any indication…
Then watch for Spain’s Garbine Muguruza to continue her tear at the U.S. Open. The 23-year-old is fresh off winning the Western and Southern Open in Cincinnati, where she defeated tournament top seed Karolina Pliskova, former U.S. Open champion Svetlana Kuznetsova and second-seed Simona Halep.
Muguruza has proven she has what it takes to endure the two-week slam schedule, winning the French Open last year and Wimbledon earlier this summer. She is playing the strongest, most consistent tennis of her young career. With defending U.S. Open champion Angelique Kerber struggling this season, Pliskova and Halep are expected to be the top seeds—and Muguruza’s biggest threats to a title run. It should be encouraging for any Muguruza fans out there given what just transpired in Cincinnati, where she made easy work of Halep in the finals, winning convincingly in straight sets 6-1, 6-0.
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The wild card
Australia’s Nick Kyrgios is undoubtedly one of the most talented tennis players on earth. He’s also, as Canadian tennis fans can attest to, one of it’s most volatile and unpredictable. But the 23-year-old is playing great at the moment and, judging by his most recent performance, could be poised to break into the later rounds at the U.S. Open.
He lost a close finals in Cincinatti to Dimitrov, but looked quite impressive in victories over David Ferrer in the semifinals, Nadal in the quarters, and a trio of tough opponents in the prior rounds in Ivo Karlovic, Alexandr Dolgopolov and ninth-ranked Goffin.
He’s never advanced past the quarter-finals of a slam tournament, but the 2017 U.S. Open might be his best chance yet.
Kyrgios is a captivating player—he’ll make unthinkable shots to end one rally and then flat-out give up in the next—and his erratic demeanour means you never quite know what to expect. At the very least it makes for a compelling watch.
Can he do it again?
Here in Canada it’s safe to say all eyes will be on Richmond Hill, Ont., native Denis Shapovalov, the teen sensation who is just two weeks removed from a stunning run at the Rogers Cup. After advancing past top-seeded Rafael Nadal in the third round in Montreal, putting the 15-time slam winner to work and maneuvering him around the court like a seasoned pro, the Israeli-born Shapovalov was the centre of the Canadian sports world.
Having already beaten 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro in straight sets the previous round, the 18-year-old rising star had already far exceeded expectations, but a run to the Rogers Cup semifinals, in which he lost a hard-fought match to eventual champion Zverev, Shapovalov cemented his status as the leader of the pack for what is a promising wave of young Canadians in the sport.
Although his Rogers Cup performance saw his tour ranking rise more than 70 spots to No. 67, surpassing countryman Vasek Pospisil (78) as the second-highest ranked Canadian on the men’s circuit behind Milos Raonic (10), Shapovalov still had to qualify for the tournament— and did so in impressive fashion, punching his ticket to Flushing Meadows on Friday.
A spot in the final Slam event of the season will give Shapovalov an opportunity to remind a much wider tennis audience that his Rogers Cup run wasn’t an isolated miracle—he made noise around this time last year as well when he ousted Kyrgios, fresh off a final appearance in the U.S. Open lead-up tournament in Cincinnati, and has the skill and demeanour to continue to open eyes as he prepares to embark on what should be his first full year on the ATP Tour circuit next year.
Other Canadians competing in the qualifiers include Francoise Abanda, Bianca Andreescu, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Frank Dancevic, Peter Polansky and Brayden Schnur.