Emma Raducanu will face an uphill battle if she is to reach the latter stages of the U.S. Open this month, following the release of the draw.
The Brit is set to Sofia Kenin in the opening round of the competition, and a victory is likely to see her face off against hard-working Jessica Pegula.
The American hope will be keen to right the wrongs of her runners-up finish at the Cincinnati Masters earlier this month, in what could spell bad news for Raducanu at Flushing Meadows.
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Fresh from his Olympic gold medal in Paris, Novak Djokovic will be keen to continue his good form to claim his 25th Grand Slam singles title. Landing the spoils in the competition would see him claim the record for the most in history from Margaret Court, having recently drawn level with the tennis great.
Djokovic is yet to truly learn his fate for the opening round of his competition, being drawn against a qualifier – with those matches taking place until Sunday.
A win would see him set up a clash with either Jan-Lennard Struff or Laslo Djere in the second round, with Alexei Popyrin likely to be his third-round opponent if both players can avoid any early upsets.
With Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz both drawn on the opposite side of the draw to the Serb, a quarter-final clash with Grigor Dimitrov or Andrey Rublev will be Djokovic’s toughest clash before reaching the final four. He could face Alexander Zverev or Holger Rune in the semi-finals.
Alcaraz will be bidding to make amends for his silver-placed finish at Roland Garros in the Olympics, with a clash with a qualifier awaiting him in the first round. He could face British star Jack Draper in the third round, with the victor likely to go on to face Alejandro Tabilo or Sebastian Korda and then Alex de Minaur or Hubert Hurkacz in the quarters.
The Spaniard is then likely to come face to face with Sinner in the semi-finals, who has a tough draw at Flushing Meadows. The world No. 1 will begin his tournament against Mackenzie McDonald, which would put him on course to face Daniil Medvedev in the quarters.
The Italian will be all too familiar with facing Alcaraz this year, having clashed with the 21-year-old three times already this year. They also played out a historic US Open match in 2022, with the pair battling it out for more than five hours in the quarter-finals before Alcaraz prevailed.