US Open 2023: Alcaraz Defends Title Amidst Questions
Carlos Alcaraz returns to Arthur Ashe Stadium as defending US Open champion with more questions than answers hanging over his right wrist and his title defence. The first examination comes against Russia’s Roman Safiullin – and this time, there is nowhere to hide.
For more than four months, the Spaniard has been stuck on the sidelines, his racket downed by inflammation in his playing wrist. No surgery, but no singles either. He skipped Roland Garros. He missed Wimbledon. The European summer rolled on without him.
New York will not.
Alcaraz has at least felt the hard courts under his feet again, easing back into competition in the mixed doubles alongside Serena Williams earlier this week. That cameo was a soft landing. Safiullin is not. The Russian is rugged, dangerous on a quick court, and perfectly placed to test both Alcaraz’s timing and his nerve in the opening round.
Despite the lay-off, the 23-year-old arrives as the second seed at Flushing Meadows, tucked in just behind top seed Alexander Zverev. The rankings have been kinder than the calendar.
Djokovic begins chase for 25
On the other side of the draw, Novak Djokovic starts another assault on history. The Serb, already level with Margaret Court on 24 major singles titles, opens against Argentina’s Mariano Navone as he hunts a standalone 25th.
Djokovic turns 39 this season, but the draw has given him no ceremonial lap. If he handles Navone, a heavyweight second round looms: either Matteo Berrettini, the man he subdued in the 2021 Wimbledon final, or three-time major champion Stan Wawrinka.
Wawrinka, playing the final major of his career after receiving a late wildcard, brings scars and memories. He is one of the few who has repeatedly cut through Djokovic on the sport’s biggest stages. One last meeting in New York would feel like a closing chapter to a rivalry that shaped an era.
Zverev steps into the spotlight
Top seed status belongs to Zverev, elevated after Jannik Sinner withdrew with a knee injury. The German finally cracked the Grand Slam code at Roland Garros in June; now he arrives in New York chasing a second major and a different kind of validation.
His campaign begins against Italy’s Lorenzo Sonego, an awkward ball-striker with enough firepower to make any top seed work. Zverev has been in this stadium before with everything on the line – he served for the title against Dominic Thiem in 2020 and watched it slip away. This time, he comes as a champion rather than a nearly man.
Sabalenka under pressure at the top
The women’s draw has its own defending champion under the microscope. Aryna Sabalenka opens against Colombia’s Camila Osorio, carrying both the US Open crown and a long stay at the summit of the women’s game.
Sabalenka has sat atop the WTA rankings for 97 weeks, a reign built on raw power and a growing steel in tight moments. But the chase behind her has sharpened. Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina lurks as the most obvious threat to that No.1 status and begins her tournament against American teenage wildcard Thea Frodin.
Frodin will walk into the occasion of her life. Rybakina will treat it as business. Somewhere between those two realities, the match will find its edge.
Venus Williams keeps pushing the line
Then there is Venus Williams, still here, still refusing to let the sport move on without her. At 46, the two-time US Open champion has been handed a wildcard despite a brutal season in which she has lost all 10 of her matches.
Her reward is a first-round meeting with 2020 Australian Open champion Sofia Kenin. The numbers say Venus is overmatched. The stadium will not care. Every appearance now feels like borrowed time, and New York has always had a soft spot for its long-serving champions.
Fery leads thin British challenge
From a British perspective, the spotlight swings to Arthur Fery. The 24-year-old stunned the tennis world with his run to the Wimbledon semi-finals in July, a surge that vaulted him into the world’s top 40 and punched his ticket to a first main-draw appearance in New York.
He missed out on a seeding by the narrowest of margins, and the punishment is immediate: Italian 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti in round one. Musetti, a US Open quarter-finalist last year, brings craft, variety and experience on this stage. Fery brings momentum and a sense that he is playing with house money.
He also brings responsibility. Ranked 37 in the world, he leads a thin British contingent hit hard by injury. Jack Draper, a semi-finalist here in 2024, pulled out last week with a long-term arm problem. Emma Raducanu, the 2021 champion and one of the defining stories in recent US Open history, remains sidelined by a shin fracture that also kept her out of Wimbledon.
Without them, the British flag flies lower in the draw.
Cameron Norrie, the British men’s No.1, just squeezed into the seedings at 29 and will open against France’s Luca van Assche. It is the kind of match Norrie has built his career on: not glamorous, but essential. Win, and he quietly moves into the second round. Lose, and the British challenge thins even further.
Jan Choinski completes the men’s line-up from Britain. At 30, he finally cracked the world’s top 100 in June, a late-career breakthrough that has earned him his place in New York. There is no fanfare, only opportunity.
Questions that only New York can answer
So the stage is set. Alcaraz walks back into the city where he became a champion, carrying a wrist that has not yet been asked to survive best-of-five sets. Djokovic stares down another slice of history. Zverev tries to prove Paris was a beginning, not a one-off. Sabalenka and Rybakina circle around the No.1 ranking. Venus Williams keeps pushing back the limits of a career that should have ended years ago.
The draw is written. The story is not. How long can the defending champions hold their ground, and who will still be standing when New York’s lights burn brightest in the second week?
