US Open Women’s Preview – Another slam up for grabs.

Being out of the loop for a while, I’m not really the best person to write a women’s preview but I’m going to have a go. Mind you, me being out the loop means not watching tennis 24/7, posting every day and dreaming about the game. I’ve still been keeping an eye on things so read it anyway! I stopped covering the women’s game several years ago to focus on the men’s, but the women’s game is actually more interesting for me lately.

Some things I do know about the field right now:

1. Iga Swiatek is struggling, suffering SFs losses in Canada and Cincy to opponents she was dominating.
2. Rybakina hasn’t gotten back to her pre RG form. Elena was doing so well up until that virus. She was very off in her Wimbledon QF and had to withdraw in Cincy. She did win 3 matches in a row in Canada and might have won it had it not been for the scheduling only for injury to crop up once more in her next event.
3. Coco Gauff is on the up. Gauf beat Swiatek in Montreal and went on to win the title. Also won Washington.
4. Sabalenka is…still Sabalenka. Buyer beware. She should have won the Wimbledon semi. She had a decent lead in to NYC but lost to Samsonova and Muchova, players she’d be beating if she was feeling good.
5. Vondrousova is still a wild card. She did fairly okay in Canada and Cincy, losing to Gauff and Swiatek and going 5-2, but she lost those matches fairly tamely. I feel like anything could happen with her this USO.
6. Things are very open. One thing I noticed looking at the men’s draw is how much tougher the women’s field is. No one has a cakewalk and anyone could be upset. Sections are crammed with seasoned vets, proven seed slayers and players who’ve gone deep in slams.

Let’s look at the draws:

Swiatek:

1r Peterson

2r Ngounoue/Saville

3r Cocciaretto

4r Kurdermetova (Ostapenko and Cornet lurking)

QF Gauff

SF Rybakina

F Sabalenka

Upset potential: Above average. This is a fairly tough draw from the fourth round on. In fact, the second and third are not cakewalks. Gauff in the quarters is worse than Gauff in the semis. There’s less pressure on the American. If Rybakina is in the semis that means she’s healthy. Oh dear, Swiatek is out of favor with the draw Gods.

Gauff:

1r Qualifier

2r Qualifier/Andreeva

3r Mertens (Collins lurking)

4r Kvitova (Linette lurking, Brady and Wozniacki present)

QF Swiatek

SF Rybakina

F Sabalenka

Upset potential: Gauf will have her hands full from the second round on if Andreeva gets there. Gauff couldn’t escape the spotlight if she tried and if she faces Andreeva-Collins-Kvitova-Swiatek, she’s going to be playing on AA under the lights every night. Gauff has it tough.

Sabalenka

1r Zanevska

2r Blinkova/Burrage

3r Pliskova

4r Kasatkina (Vekic, Badosa, Kenin, Venus Williams lurking!)

QF Jabeur (Krejcikova, Podoroska, Zheng lurking)

SF Pegula (Vondrousova, Keys, Garcia lurking)

F Swiatek

Upset potential: An interesting draw. Kenin would be a tough match. Nothing too dangerous here, though. Arguably has the safest passage of the top seeds.

Jabeur did beat her at Wimbledon. But I don’t see Jabeur getting that far. She seemed pretty broken after her SW19 final loss and I think she might need more time.

So…expect a random upset.

Rybakina

1r Kostyuk

2r Tomljanovic/ Udvardy

3r Cirstea (Kalinskaya lurking)

4r Bencic (Azarenka lurking)

QF Sakkari (Muchova, Stephens lurking)

SF Swiatek

F Sabalenka

Upset potential: Red alert! High chance of a first round upset here. Kostyuk is a dangerous, seasoned opponent. Tomljanovic is incredibly wily. Cirstea, too. Good luck Elena! You’ll need it.

Vondrousouva

1r Qualifier

2r Putintseva/ Trevisan

3r Alexandrova (Tsurenko, Fernandez, Andreescu lurking!!)

4r Garcia

QF Pegula

SF Sabalenka

F Swiatek

Upset potential: Very high. Her section has plenty of banana skins. The typical narrative is the most recent debut slam winner goes home early and there’s plenty of competition to assist Marketa in following this script.