10 TAKEAWAYS FROM THE 2025 US OPEN

Alcaraz Upholds A Tradition; Sabalenka Defends Title

By Richard Osborn

CincinnatiOpen.com takes stock in the 2025 US Open, from Carlos Alcaraz’s Cincy-New York sweep to Aryna Sabalenka’s successful title defense in Flushing Meadows:   

1 | THE CINCY-TO-FLUSHING BACK-TO-BACK IS REAL

For the third year in a row, the Cincinnati Open proved a bellwether for the US Open. The last three men’s singles titlists have gone back-to-back in Ohio and New York: Novak Djokovic (2023), Jannik Sinner (2024) and now Carlos Alcaraz. The 22-year-old Spaniard would top his chief rival Sinner on both occasions, becoming the youngest man in the Open Era to win six major singles titles, and reclaiming No. 1 in the PIF ATP Rankings for the first time since September 2023. Headed next to the Laver Cup in San Francisco, Alcaraz and his buzzcut lead the tour in wins (61) and titles (seven) on the season. “When you achieve the goals you set up for yourself at the beginning of the year, it feels amazing,” said Alcaraz. “It was one of the first goals that I had during the season, just to try to recover the No. 1 as soon as possible. To achieve that once again, it’s a dream. Doing it the same day as getting another Grand Slam feels even better.” (Alcaraz wasn’t the only one who pulled off the Cincy-NY sweep: The duo of Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe took the women’s doubles at both events.)

2 | COCO GAUFF IS HUMAN AFTER ALL

It’s no secret that 2023 Cincinnati Open titlist Coco Gauff has been tinkering with her serve, even hiring biomechanics specialist Gavin MacMillan to help her do away with the double faults. (MacMillan came highly recommended by world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka.) Fighting her way through a 7-6(5), 6-2 second-round win over Croatia’s Donna Vekic at the US Open, it all came to a head for the 21-year-old Gauff, who was reduced to tears when addressing the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd. “Being able to do that in front of a stadium and kind of break down and go through whatever she was going through inside and then still be able to win the match, to come out on the other side? I mean, that takes guts,” said Gauff’s countrywoman, 2024 Cincinnati Open runner-up Jessica Pegula. “It showed that she was human. I think sometimes fans don’t understand that tennis isn’t life or death, but when you’re out there and you’re doing something that you’ve worked your whole life for and you feel like something is not working, she hit a point where she couldn’t hold it in anymore. It probably helped her that she cried and got it out of her system. It’s not always healthy to keep everything in.”

3 | TAYLOR TOWNSEND ‘EMERGING AS A NEW PERSON’

She warned us this summer in Cincinnati not to typecast her as a ‘doubles specialist’, and rightfully so. Now more than a decade into her professional career, the Chicagoan has earned the right to put her foot down when it comes to her on-court roles: She rose to No. 1 in the PIF WTA Doubles Rankings in July but has also reached the Top 50 in singles. A post-match run-in with opponent Jelena Ostapenko would put her squarely in the spotlight at the US Open (“It was unfortunate, but it’s something I can put on my TikTok,” she joked), but it was her tennis that spoke loudest. The proud mom would play her way into the Round of 16 in the singles draw, ousting seeds Ostapenko and Mirra Andreeva in the process, then push through to the women’s doubles final alongside fellow 29-year-old Katerina Siniakova. “As a tennis player, people have always said, ‘You’re so talented, you have so many weapons, you have so many things you can do, but…’ There was always a ‘but’. I feel like the work I’ve been putting in and all the things I’ve been doing has eliminated that ‘but’. I’m emerging as a new person,” she said. “I think more than anything, I gained the respect of everyone in the tennis world and put a lot of my competitors on notice.”

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4 | SELF-BELIEF PAYING OFF FOR FELIX

Three-time Cincinnati Open quarterfinalist Felix Auger-Aliassime has been battling both his body and his form the past two seasons, dropping from a career-high No. 6 in the PIF ATP Rankings in 2022 to a low of No. 36. But the 25-year-old Canadian says he never stopped backing himself. That self-belief paid off in a big way in Flushing Meadows, where FAA reached the second US Open semifinal of his career, his first since 2021. “Even these last few years, I was young enough to think, ‘Okay, what do I need to improve, which areas do I need to improve, what changes do I need to make?’ That’s really what I was focused on, more the day-to-day and the process. If you’re not winning, you have to find ways to get better.”

5 | ARYNA DELIVERED UNDER PRESSURE

Even Aryna Sabalenka, perched atop the PIF WTA Rankings for the past 47 weeks, said her year wouldn’t feel complete without one of the four most cherished trophies in the sport. The 27-year-old had come up short in the Australian Open and Roland Garros finals, as well as the Wimbledon semis. The US Open presented her with one final chance to deliver, and that’s exactly what she did. Sabalenka outlasted Jessica Pegula in a semifinal rematch of the 2024 Cincinnati Open final, 4-6, 6-3, 6-4, then took down another American in Amanda Anisimova in a meeting of two of the most powerful ball-strikers on the tour, 6-3, 7-6(3). She fell to her knees in relief on championship point, her fourth major singles title finally in hand. “I think because of the finals earlier this season, this one felt different,” she said. “This one felt like I had to overcome a lot of things to get this one. I knew that with the hard work we put in, I deserved to have a Grand Slam title this season. When I fell, it was true emotion, because it means a lot to defend this title and to bring such great tennis on the court. And to bring the fight and be able to handle my emotions the way I did in this final, it means a lot. I’m super proud right now of myself.”

6 | JANNIK LOOKS TO GET OUT OF COMFORT ZONE

The great ones, they adapt; they find new ways to win, always open to improving their game no matter how many gleaming trophies are in the cabinet. No one embodies that mindset more than 22-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic, who has always been open to change, to tweaking his arsenal. Jannik Sinner echoed that same outlook after his four-set, 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 defeat at the hands of Carlos Alcaraz at the US Open. “I was very predictable today on court,” said the Italian, just a Roland Garros title away from the career Grand Slam. “It’s going to be on me if I want to make changes or not. We are definitely going to work on that. When you play against Carlos, you have to go out of your comfort zone. I’m going to aim to, maybe even losing some matches, to make some changes, trying to be a bit more unpredictable as a player. I think that’s what I have to do.”

7 | AT 38, NOVAK SAYS THERE’S STILL SOMETHING TO PROVE

No one would blame the last standing member of the Big Three if he called it a day. Novak Djokovic, after all, doesn’t have anything left to prove. He’s got the most major singles titles (24), most ATP Masters 1000s (40, including three in Cincinnati), most overall weeks at No. 1 (428), most year-end No. 1 finishes (eight), most Grand Slam match wins (397), double Career Grand Slam, etc. But the 38-year-old Serb, who reached the semis of all four Grand Slams in 2025, the oldest player in the Open Era to do so, insists there’s still plenty to play for. “There is always something to prove once you step out onto the court,” he said. Despite his assertion that defeating Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz in a five-set format is now all but undoable, Djokovic says he’s not quite ready to walk away from the sport. “I’m not giving up on the Grand Slams in that regard, having said that,” said Djokovic. “I’m going to continue fighting and trying to get to the finals and fight for another trophy, at least. But it’s going to be a very difficult task.”

8 | NAOMI’S BACK

It had been a tough road for Naomi Osaka, who, post-motherhood, struggled to rediscover the kind of form that led her to four Grand Slam titles between 2019 and 2021, two each at the Australian Open and US Open. But things began to change this summer when Osaka pushed through to a WTA 1000 final in Montreal. Despite a loss to 18-year-old phenom Victoria Mboko of Canada in the title match, Osaka would carry some serious momentum into the US Open, where she upended third seed Coco Gauff en route to the quarterfinals, her best result at a major in more than four years. Did she ever lose faith that she would be back in this position? “Maybe I’m crazy or something, but I always feel like you have to imagine it, and then you have to believe it for it to actually come true,” said Osaka, who took the court each night with a different Labubu plush toy hitched to her racquet bag, including ‘Billie Jean Bling’, ‘Arthur Flash’, and ‘Althea Glitterson’. “But you’re also speaking to the kid that visualized playing Serena too, so I feel like there’s a lot of power in dreaming and believing.”

9 | DANIIL LEFT LOOKING FOR ANSWERS

Daniil Medvedev has looked out of sorts of late on a surface upon which he was once a dominant force. The former world No. 1, who took the Rookwood Cup at the Cincinnati Open in 2019, hasn’t won a match at the Linder Family Tennis Center since 2023. His struggles, which have him on the verge of dropping outside the Top 20 in the PIF ATP Rankings, came to a head in Flushing Meadows, where he lost his cool in a three-hour, 45-minute, 6-3, 7-5, 6-7(5), 0-6, 6-4 collapse against Frenchman Benjamin Bonzi. In a surreal match during which a photographer galloped across the court midway through the proceedings, Medvedev would total 64 unforced errors and toss a half-dozen racquets into the stands for fans. “I’m playing bad, and in important moments even worse,” he confided. “Everything: serve, return, volley, whatever, I just need to play better, and I’m going to try to do it next year.” He’ll do so under a new coach after parting ways with longtime mentor Gilles Cervara, who guided him to the top of the PIF ATP Rankings and to the winner’s circle at the US Open in 2021.

10 | AMANDA PLAYING WITHOUT FEAR

It didn’t take long for Amanda Anisimova to put her painful double-bagel, 6-0, 6-0 loss to Iga Swiatek in the Wimbledon final behind her. She would earn a rematch in the US Open quarterfinals and grab some redemption in the form of a straight-sets 6-4, 6-3 victory. After reaching back-to-back major singles finals in London and New York, the 24-year-old is up to a career-high No. 4 in the PIF WTA Rankings. “I feel like with each match that I’ve played, I tell myself to really not go into the match with fear,” said Anisimova during her run at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. “I think when I started the tournament, I was kind of going into the matches with a little bit of fear and maybe holding back a bit. As I’ve been progressing and playing more and more, I told myself, ‘You can’t go into the match with any fear’, especially if I’m playing against top players. It’s just not a negotiable for me, because if I want to win the match, I’m going to have to play really brave and strong tennis.”