Courtesy of Sudan Ouyang
Last week, the 2026 ATP Tour concluded as the final of the four major tournaments, the US Open, came to a close in Flushing Meadows at the legendary Arthur Ashe Stadium. This year’s US Open is undoubtedly going to go down as one of the more unpredictable tournaments in recent years with a lot of dominant figures in modern tennis not living up to expectations. But with this unpredictability came some memorable storylines and historic moments.
Perhaps the most iconic moment from this year’s US Open was the epic quarterfinals match between tournament favorite and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz of Spain, and young American phenom Ben Shelton. Shelton managed to pull off the upset victory and dethroned the champion in a back-and-forth five-set war, which included tiebreakers in the first and fifth sets. Alcaraz managed to come away with the first set, winning the tiebreaker seven to five, but he would drop the next two sets by a score of six to one and six to three, respectively. He would rally in the fourth, winning easily six to one, and with momentum in his favor, it seemed like Alcaraz was going to come away with the clutch victory like he has done so many times over the past several years, now on route to the eighth Grand Slam title of his career. But Ben Shelton fought back and, at the end of a contentious fifth set, came out on top in a tiebreaker, taking it 10 to seven and dethroning the king. Shelton would go on to make quick work of his fellow American Francis Tiafoe in the semifinals, winning in four sets before coming up against Alexander Zverev in the final. Shelton was no match for the number one ranked player in the tournament who won swiftly and claimed his second Grand Slam title of the year after winning the French Open earlier this season. After a hard-fought tournament for Shelton, he remains waiting for his first Grand Slam title, and the United States waits for its first Grand Slam title winner since 2003.
One of the reasons this year’s US Open on the men’s side was so wide open was the injury to the number one-ranked player in the world and defending Wimbledon champion Jannik Sinner, who didn’t partake in the tournament. He has been suffering from a knee injury since his last match, when he won the Wimbledon final against Zverev, and is eyeing a swift return to the top in 2027 at the Australian Open in January.
Another major talking point of this year’s tournament was the first-round exit of 24-time Grand Slam champion and four-time US Open champion, Novak Djokovic. Despite being 39 years old, Djokovic has remained near the top of the sport, reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon and losing to Sinner, finishing runner-up at the beginning of the year in Australia to Alcaraz, and making the semifinals in all four of the major tournaments in 2025. It is absolutely a feat in itself to maintain such consistent success at such an age and it is something we have never seen before, but the cracks have been showing. Following a reign of dominance at the start of the 2020s, winning eight Grand Slams in four years from 2020 to 2023, Djokovic has not been able to ascend to the top of the sport since then, as the era of Sinner and Alcaraz has taken over, leaving him chasing an elusive 25th Grand Slam win. Since his last Grand Slam title in 2023, Djokovic has played in 12 major tournaments and has been eliminated by Sinner or Alcaraz in seven of them. He has only managed two wins against them in that same time frame. The struggle for Djokovic hasn’t been making it far and making it past other challengers; it has consistently been making it past these two budding superstars, but this year, even making it late has been a real struggle. He lost in the first round of the US Open to 45th-ranked Mariano Navone and lost in the third round of the French Open to Joao Fonseca, who was ranked 29th at the time. Could father time finally be catching up to Novak Djokovic, or will he return to the top once more and claim the 25th title? Only time will tell.
On the Women’s bracket, it stuck much more closely to the script this year, with the semifinals featuring the four top-ranked women: number one ranked Aryna Sabalenka from Belarus, number two ranked Elena Rybakina from Kazakhstan, and two Americans, number three ranked Jessica Pegula and number four ranked young superstar Coco Gauff. Despite the success of the two Americans, they both fell in the semifinals, setting up Rybakina and Sabalenka in a showdown of ranks one and two. In the end, it was the underdog Rybakina taking the final slam of 2026 and claiming the top ranking in the world heading into next season.
With the 2026 season over, there will be a lot of interesting storylines heading into 2027. How will Sinner return from his absence as we look forward to the continuation of his legendary rivalry with Alcaraz? Will Shelton ascend to the top of the tennis world next year and become the first American to do so in 24 years? Can Djokovic go out on top and win his elusive 25th Grand Slam to cement himself as the greatest player to step on a court? And how will Pegula and Gauff fare as they try to dethrone the new best player in the world, Elena Rybakina?
