Seeded second, rated first
Carlos Alcaraz has not played a competitive match since April. The Opta supercomputer still makes him the man to beat at Flushing Meadows.
Alcaraz carries a 13.2% chance of defending his title after 10,000 simulations of the draw, published this morning. Alexander Zverev is the top seed. He gets 7.3%. That 5.9-point gap between a player’s seeding and his actual standing is the widest in either singles draw, and it is bigger than the combined title chances of the top eight women (5.5%).
Jannik Sinner is absent. That removes the one man who could reasonably have split the difference.
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A quarter that swallowed the draw
The catch for Alcaraz is where he landed. His eighth of the bracket holds 33.1% of all the title equity in the men’s draw. Arthur Fils sits in it. The Cincinnati champion is seeded 10th and rated at 7.0%, which puts him above every seed from three through nine. He is effectively a top-three threat wearing a 10th seed.
The other three quarters, fronted by Zverev, Felix Auger-Aliassime and Novak Djokovic, cluster between 21 and 25%. Rafael Jodar, the 12th seed, follows the Fils pattern at 4.2%, outperforming seeds five through eight and 11.
Only six of the 32 men’s seeds are given better than a one-in-three shot at the second week: Alcaraz (49.7%), Zverev (40.1%), Taylor Fritz (38.5%), Fils (38.3%), Djokovic (35.0%) and Frances Tiafoe (33.4%).
The name to watch outside the seeds is Thiago Agustin Tirante. The Argentine’s 1.4% title chance beats 14 seeded players. Since 1973 only Juan Martin del Potro (10 in 2016) and Boris Becker (9 in 1998) have recorded more ATP top-20 wins in a season while ranked outside the top 50 than Tirante’s eight this year.
The women’s draw refuses to pick a favourite
Aryna Sabalenka leads at 9.6%, Elena Rybakina at 8.6%, and the numbers stay bunched from there. Four players can leave New York as world No. 1.
Nobody is safe early. Sabalenka is given a 46.9% chance of reaching the last 16, Rybakina 48.2%, Jessica Pegula 43.8%. Sabalenka’s section is the toughest in the draw at 26.2% of total equity, with Marta Kostyuk on 5.3% and Barbora Krejcikova floating dangerously at 1.2%.
Coco Gauff drew the softest quarter, worth 20.9%, and just 15.6% once her own chances come out. Seeded fourth, eighth by title odds, and handed the kindest road of anyone near the top.
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