Ten thousand simulations, one lopsided men’s draw
Opta put the 2026 US Open bracket through its supercomputer in the days after the draw was made. Ten thousand runs later, the men’s verdict came back without much ambiguity: Carlos Alcaraz is the favorite to defend his title, at 13.2%.
Where he sits matters more than the number. Alcaraz is seeded behind Alexander Zverev, yet the model hands him almost double the German’s title chance, 13.2% against 7.3%. That 5.9-point gap is the widest mismatch between seeding and favoritism anywhere in either draw. For context, the spread across the entire top eight in the women’s field is 5.5%.
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Arthur Fils is seeded 10th and priced like a top-three pick
The Cincinnati champion is the strangest entry on the board. Opta gives Arthur Fils a 7.0% shot at the title, better than every seed from No 3 through No 9. The computer is not treating him like a No 10 seed at all.
His problem is geography. Fils landed in Alcaraz’s quarter, and between them the pair account for 33.1% of the tournament’s total title value. A third of the trophy sits in one eighth of the draw. Every other men’s quarter falls between 21% and 25%.
Then there is Thiago Agustin Tirante. The unseeded Argentine gets 1.4%, which beats 14 players seeded above him. He has taken down top-20 ATP opponents eight times in 2026 while ranked outside the top 50. Only Juan Martin del Potro in 2016 and Boris Becker in 1998 have managed better from that position since 1973.
Nobody gets a comfortable route on the women’s side
The women’s numbers tell the opposite story. Aryna Sabalenka leads at 9.6%, Elena Rybakina sits at 8.6%, and the field bunches up tightly behind them. Four players can leave New York as world No 1.
Depth like that has a cost. Opta gives Sabalenka a 46.9% chance of merely reaching the last 16, Rybakina 48.2%, Jessica Pegula 43.8%. The biggest names are all a bad afternoon from the exit. Sabalenka drew the roughest quarter of the four, with Marta Kostyuk and Barbora Krejcikova waiting in it, while Coco Gauff has the cleanest run on paper.
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