US Open 2026: the men's draw put all the summer form in the bottom half
With Jannik Sinner out with a right knee problem, the Flushing Meadows seeding has been rewritten and the No. 1 seed is Alexander Zverev. But the number that explains the draw is a different one: the four men who played the finals in Montreal and Cincinnati, Ben Shelton, Brandon Nakashima, Arthur Fils and Frances Tiafoe, have all fallen into the same half as Novak Djokovic and Carlos Alcaraz. None of them are in Zverev's half.
Top half: two quarters where nobody arrives in form
Zverev opens against Lorenzo Sonego, against whom he has won every previous meeting, and finds in his quarter Alex de Minaur, Lorenzo Musetti and Rafael Jodar. The Spaniard, 19, started 2026 outside the world's top 150 and cracked the top 15 after the Washington final, where he beat Musetti himself in the quarterfinals. He opens against Kokkinakis and would meet de Minaur in the round of 16, the real pivot point of that section.
The next quarter belongs to Felix Auger-Aliassime, who opens against Hijikata and would face Khachanov as early as the second round and Learner Tien in the round of 16. Also in there are Flavio Cobolli, the No. 5 seed and Italy's top-ranked player with Sinner out, and Taylor Fritz, the 2024 New York finalist.
The point is form. Zverev stopped in the round of 16 at Cincinnati against Tommy Paul, Auger-Aliassime in the round of 16 against Tiafoe. Cobolli went further than both, a semifinal loss to Fils, and opens against Comesana. Whoever comes out of this half will reach the final having spent less than whoever comes out of the other one, and over a two-week Slam that saving shows up in the fifth set of the second Sunday.
Djokovic's quarter: two of the four August finalists on the same side
Djokovic, 39, opens against Mariano Navone and could meet Matteo Berrettini in the second round. Nakashima, the Canada finalist, would await in the round of 16. In the quarterfinals, Daniil Medvedev or Tiafoe, who beat Auger-Aliassime in Cincinnati and reached the final.
In Cincinnati, Djokovic lost in the second round to Thiago Agustín Tirante. The risk in his draw is structural: to reach the semifinal he has to win five best-of-five-set matches against opponents who have just built rhythm and confidence on American hardcourts. The math he needs to make work is about minutes on court.
Alcaraz's quarter: returning without match play against players coming off a title
Alcaraz has not played an official match since April, when he retired from Barcelona with wrist tenosynovitis in his right wrist. He skipped Madrid, Rome, Roland Garros, Wimbledon, Queen's, Montreal and Cincinnati, and has decided to return directly at a Slam, with no warm-up tournaments. The draw sends the bill straight away: Roman Safiullin in the first round, Matteo Arnaldi possible in the third, Tommy Paul or Alexander Bublik in the round of 16, Shelton or Fils in the quarterfinals.
Shelton defended his Canada title without dropping a set, Fils won his first Masters 1000 in Cincinnati, beating Tiafoe 6-3, 1-6, 6-0.
The variable with Alcaraz is workload. The right wrist is what holds up the forehand and the pronation snap on the serve, and in best-of-five the test comes from the volume of shots accumulated, not from any single hard-hit ball. More than four months without matches come due in the third set of the third round.
The forecast, and what could disprove it
In the top half Zverev starts as the favorite, with Cobolli and Auger-Aliassime as credible alternatives and Jodar as the wildcard factor. In the bottom half there is no clear favorite: Alcaraz remains the strongest player in the tournament on paper, Shelton and Fils each arrive with a Masters 1000 title won within three weeks of each other, Djokovic has the toughest draw of the four section leaders. The forecast is that the finalist to emerge from the top half will reach the last Sunday carrying at least one match's worth of less fatigue.
What could disprove it: if Alcaraz closes out his first two rounds in three sets, with no new strapping and no drop in forehand speed off the serve, that quarter becomes his again and the forecast shifts to him. Watch the length of his first two matches more than the score.
