Coco Gauff Faces Fierce Competition As She Aims To Defend Her Us Open Title.

The 2024 U.S. Open is fast approaching, as top tennis players from around the world prepare to compete at the prestigious Billie Jean King Tennis Center in Queens, New York. The tournament will kick off on August 26th, with the highly anticipated women’s singles final scheduled for September 7th.

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has witnessed an incredibly competitive season, with different champions emerging victorious in each of the first three major tournaments. Adding to the intrigue, another player claimed the gold medal at the Paris Olympics. Interestingly, none of these four aforementioned champions are the defending U.S. Open titleholder, making this year’s tournament even more captivating as numerous contenders vie for the grand prize.

Coco Gauff currently holds the U.S. Open title after securing her first-ever Grand Slam victory last year. Meanwhile, Iga Swiatek, who currently ranks as the world’s top player, triumphed in the 2022 U.S. Open and enters the 2024 edition as the top seed.

However, Swiatek enters this Grand Slam event in less-than-optimal form, having failed to clinch a victory in her last three tournaments. This stands in stark contrast to her earlier performance this year, where she won half of the first ten tournaments she participated in and never suffered back-to-back defeats. Remarkably, this marks the third consecutive year that Swiatek begins the U.S. Open as the top seed, with a win in 2022 and a fourth-round exit in 2023 against the 20th seed.

Aryna Sabalenka, who has reached at least the semifinals in six of her last seven Grand Slam appearances, faces challenges when playing against similarly ranked opponents. She boasts a winning record against only one of the other top five-ranked players globally and holds a 15-17 overall record against these competitors.

The defending champion and highest-ranked American player, Coco Gauff, currently holds the third spot in the rankings. Although she started the year with a triumph in New Zealand, Gauff faced several setbacks since then. Her only singles victory this year occurred in New Zealand, as she exited in the semifinals of the first two major tournaments, the fourth round at Wimbledon, and the third round at the Olympics, despite being chosen as the Paris 2024 flag bearer.

In addition to her singles matches, Gauff occasionally participated in doubles and even expanded her repertoire to mixed doubles at the Olympics. One might wonder if this extensive participation in various events is taking a toll on her performance. Over the past four tournaments, Gauff suffered eliminations at the hands of double-digit seeds three times, including a surprising loss to an unseeded player during her U.S. Open tune-up in Cincinnati. Nonetheless, she aims to capitalize on the hometown support in Queens and become the first female player since Serena Williams’ three-peat from 2012 to 2014 to successfully defend her U.S. Open title.

Among other American hopefuls, Danielle Collins and Jessica Pegula have the potential to secure a spot in Arthur Ashe Stadium on September 7th. Collins, 30, has already announced her impending retirement at the end of the season, yet her outstanding performance this year might prompt her to reconsider. The two WTA titles she claimed this year match the total number of titles she won in her first eight years on the professional circuit.

Another American player, Jessica Pegula, garners immense local support due to being born and raised in New York, as well as her family’s ownership of the Buffalo Bills. Although Pegula has reached the quarterfinals on six occasions across her 22 Grand Slam tournaments, she is yet to progress further. However, her most promising performances at the U.S. Open came in the previous two years, in which she advanced to the fourth round and the quarterfinals.

All four of Naomi Osaka’s Grand Slam titles were won on hard courts, with an 80% success rate on this surface compared to 57% on others. As the only female player to have won multiple U.S. Open titles, Osaka cannot be discounted. She will kick off her 2024 U.S. Open campaign against the 10-seeded Jelena Ostapenko, a player against whom she holds a 1-0 record.