Sports — Noozify Original — September 16, 2026

With the Favorites Gone, the 2026 US Open Rewarded Persistence

By Dan Chafetz

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The 2026 US Open arrived at Flushing Meadows without the usual certainty about who was supposed to win it. Jannik Sinner, the world No. 1, withdrew on August 21st with a knee injury, ending a run of appearances at every Grand Slam since Wimbledon 2019. With the sport's leading figure absent, the tournament opened with a broader question: who would take advantage of the vacancy?

The answer got harder almost immediately. Novak Djokovic, the fourth seed, arrived already struggling physically and was beaten in the first round by Argentina's Mariano Navone. It was only the third opening-round loss of his Grand Slam career, his first in New York, and his earliest exit from a major since the 2006 Australian Open. It also produced a remarkable footnote. For the first time since the 2003 French Open, none of the three men who defined the sport for so long reached the second round.

Carlos Alcaraz, the defending champion, was still in the draw, but hardly in ideal shape. Wrist surgery had kept him out for more than four months, and his comeback ended in the quarterfinals against Ben Shelton. Their match ran deep into the night and finished at 3:33 a.m., the latest in tournament history. Shelton needed four hours and 28 minutes to get past the champion, closing it with a 146 mph ace. His summary afterward, "I'm tired. It was a war," needed little embellishment.

With Alcaraz gone, the men's bracket opened up, and the Americans had an opportunity that had been missing for years. Shelton and Frances Tiafoe had both survived five-set quarterfinals on the same marathon Tuesday before meeting in the semifinal, the first at a Grand Slam between two Black American men. Shelton won in four sets, becoming the first Black American man in a US Open final since Arthur Ashe in 1972. He was also one win from ending the American men's title drought at the tournament, which stretched back to Andy Roddick in 2003.

Waiting for him was Alexander Zverev, whose career had spent years circling the biggest prizes without securing them. He had squandered a two-set lead in the 2020 US Open final, lost two more Grand Slam finals after that, and suffered a serious ankle injury at Roland Garros in 2022. Meanwhile, a younger generation collected the trophies many expected him to win.

He came to New York as the top seed at a Grand Slam for the first time, a status he owed to Sinner's absence. After beating Karen Khachanov in three tight sets, Zverev beat Shelton 6-3, 7-6(2), 5-7, 6-2 for the title.

Even the ending was unusual. Zverev was so locked into his service motion that he thought the score was 5-1 when the match was already over. His brother Mischa, watching from courtside, had to tell him he had won. At the trophy ceremony, Zverev acknowledged that most of the crowd had been behind Shelton, telling spectators he knew "99.9%" of them had wanted his opponent to win.

Later, he explained the work behind the breakthrough. Zverev said he did not consider himself a naturally gifted player in the way some of his rivals were, and pointed instead to the enormous amount of time he had put into physical training. From a player long regarded as one of the most physically imposing talents in the sport, it sounded less like modesty than an explanation of the formula that had finally delivered a second major.

The numbers backed him up. Zverev became the first German man to win the US Open since Boris Becker in 1989, and only the fourth man in the Open Era, after Jimmy Connors, Guillermo Vilas, and Sinner, to win his first two Grand Slam titles in the same calendar year. The first had come at Roland Garros in June. He was 29.

The women's tournament produced a similarly unusual champion, though its most remarkable story ended before the semifinals. Zheng Qinwen arrived in Queens ranked No. 121, after more than a year disrupted by elbow surgery, illness, and poor form, and had to qualify just to reach the main draw.

Once there, she produced two extraordinary comebacks. Against Madison Keys, Zheng trailed 0-5 in the deciding set and won seven games in a row. Two days later, she did almost the same thing to Iga Świątek, again recovering from 0-5 with seven straight games. Świątek had never lost to a qualifier or lucky loser at a Grand Slam. She left Arthur Ashe Stadium in tears.

Otherwise the women's draw mostly went to form. Aryna Sabalenka survived a match tiebreak against Wimbledon champion Linda Nosková, then beat Jessica Pegula to reach her third straight US Open final.

Coco Gauff beat Mirra Andreeva to reach her first US Open semifinal since her 2023 title. Against Elena Rybakina, she played what she and those around her called some of the best tennis of her career in the opening set. Rybakina eventually turned the match around, winning 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.

Rybakina's own run had begun in doubt. Two weeks earlier, at Cincinnati, she had suffered what looked like an Achilles problem. Her preparation in New York was limited and mostly private, and there were questions over whether she would play at all. Reaching the semifinal was enough to guarantee her the world No. 1 ranking whatever happened next. She became the 30th woman to hold it, and the first athlete from Kazakhstan to be ranked No. 1 in any sport.

Then she won the tournament anyway. Rybakina beat Sabalenka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2, ending Sabalenka's 99-week stretch at No. 1 and denying her a third straight US Open title. Rybakina said afterward that she had come to the tournament expecting nothing like what happened.

The final also continued a pattern from earlier in the season. Rybakina and Sabalenka had met in the Australian Open final in January, making them the first women to face each other in both hard-court Grand Slam finals in the same year since Steffi Graf and Arantxa Sánchez Vicario in 1994.

Maria Sharapova presented the trophy. She was in New York for the 20th anniversary of her own 2006 US Open title, and Rybakina said the two had never had a real conversation before.

The tournament was full of those connections between past and present. Roger Federer and Mary Carillo were inducted into the Hall of Fame the Saturday before play began. Stan Wawrinka and Gaël Monfils played their final Grand Slam matches. In the revamped mixed doubles event, Karolína Muchová and Jakub Menšík split a $1 million prize. The USTA also announced record player compensation of $108 million, including $5.5 million for each singles champion, a 20 percent increase on the previous year.

All of it led back to the question that had hung over Flushing Meadows from the start. With Sinner absent, Djokovic gone in the first round, and Alcaraz stopped in the quarterfinals, the expected order of men's tennis gave way to something less familiar. On the women's side, Rybakina emerged from an event she had entered with real doubts about whether she could play.

In the end, both singles titles went to players in their late twenties who had lost Grand Slam finals before and spent years being treated as players who came close without quite getting there. This time, persistence mattered more than early arrival. After a period in which youth and precocious talent had dominated the sport, two weeks in New York were a reminder that experience, resilience and simply continuing to compete can eventually have their moment.