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Mektic/Pavic are the top seeds
In a stacked US Open draw, the world's leading doubles teams are out to stop top seeds Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic from capturing their 10th tour-level title of the season.

Leading the charge in New York will be the 2019 US Open champions Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah. The fifth seeds, who reached the semi-finals in Cincinnati earlier this month, are aiming to clinch their third major crown, having also triumphed at Wimbledon in 2019. Cabal and Farah will begin their US Open campaign against Polish team Hubert Hurkacz and Szymon Walkow.

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The favourites for the title at the Flushing Meadows are Croatians Nikola Mektic and Mate Pavic. The pair has won nine tour-level trophies this season in their first year together, including three ATP Masters 1000 crowns, Wimbledon and an Olympic gold medal. They will face American wild cards Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow in the first round.

Spanish-Argentine tandem Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos arrive in form. The second seeds won their fourth Masters 1000 title in Cincinnati after advancing to the Wimbledon final in July. Granollers and Zeballos, who start against Argentine duo Facundo Bagnis and Federico Delbonis, have fond memories at the US Open, where they enjoyed a run to the championship match in 2019.

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Frenchmen Nicolas Mahut and Pierre-Hugues Herbert have a strong pedigree at majors, triumphing once at the Australian Open, Wimbledon and US Open and twice at Roland Garros. The third seeds, who won the title in New York in 2015, will be aiming to capture their third tour-level trophy of the season in the next fortnight.

Fourth seeds Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury advanced to the last four at the US Open last year and enter with momentum. The American-British tandem clinched their maiden Masters 1000 title as a team in Toronto in August and will be targeting a second major trophy in the next fortnight, after winning the Australian Open in 2020.

Medvedev closes night session on Arthur Ashe Stadium

Arthur Ashe Stadium is a fitting stage for a first-time showdown between World No. 3 Stefanos Tsitsipas and three-time major champion Andy Murray. Among a string of generational clashes, the pair headlines Day 1 of the 2021 US Open, which also features second seed Daniil Medvedev and eighth seed Casper Ruud against French veterans Richard Gasquet and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, respectively.

The last time Tsitsipas squared off against a Grand Slam champion at a major he came up agonisingly short, having led Novak Djokovic two sets to love at Roland Garros in June. That defeat lingered as the Greek fell to Frances Tiafoe in the first round at Wimbledon a fortnight later, but has since rediscovered his form on North American hard courts, with back-to-back ATP Masters 1000 semi-finals in Toronto and Cincinnati.

“He's someone that has been putting a lot of work to get back and has been playing very good tennis to be standing where he's at right now. I think I'm going to go for it, try my chances against him,” Tsitsipas said of Murray. “He's someone that won't give up. I'll have to bring some good tennis from my side.”


Murray, having contested only seven tour-level singles events this year on his road back from hip surgery, tested Hubert Hurkacz and Tiafoe in respective second-round meetings in Cincinnati and Winston-Salem leading in. Nine years since his first major triumph in New York, the 34-year-old World No. 112 would love nothing more than to ride the crowd to a huge upset on Day 1.

“The positive thing in the past few months is that I haven't been held back really from what I can do on the practice court,” Murray said. “It is the matches where you need to ultimately go out there and perform. That's what's been frustrating the past few weeks.”

Second seed Daniil Medvedev opens his campaign on Monday against former No. 7 in the FedEx ATP Rankings, Gasquet, in the night session on Arthur Ashe Stadium. Two years ago, the Russian surged back from two sets down and pushed Rafael Nadal to a fifth set in his maiden Grand Slam final at Flushing Meadows.


While he ultimately came up short, Medvedev reaffirmed his hard-court credentials when he ploughed through 15 straight sets to reach the semi-finals last year. Eventual champion Dominic Thiem ended his run there, however he reached a second major final at this year’s Australian Open (l. to Djokovic). Medvedev found form leading into this year’s US Open with his fourth ATP Masters 1000 title in Toronto and a semi-final appearance in Cincinnati.

“Now I have two finals, need to win, to make a better result at a Slam,” Medvedev said. “I was playing well in both Toronto and Cincinnati, quite similar conditions, hot, humid. I just want to continue [at] this level. When I play well, I know that I can cause trouble to my opponents. That's the most important.”

The first player seeded in the Top 2 outside Djokovic, Roger Federer, Nadal or Murray in New York, Medvedev has split two ATP Head2Head meetings with Gasquet. Each prevailed on home soil – Gasquet in Montepllier in 2018 and Medvedev in St Petersburg last year – and both with a bagel set to boot.

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Since he reached his 32nd tour-level final in Umag last month on clay, the 35-year-old Gasquet – a semi-finalist in New York eight years ago – qualified in Cincinnati (l. to Murray) and reached the quarter-finals in Winston-Salem last week, a run which included a win over third seed Daniel Evans.

In the popcorn first-round match of Day 1, 18th seed Roberto Bautista Agut squares off against arguably the most dangerous floater in the draw, Nick Kyrgios. In the ultimate contrast of styles and on-court dispositions, the ever-consistent Spaniard and the mercurial Australian split two previous ATP Head2Head encounters, with Bautista Agut having claimed their most recent clash at last year’s ATP Cup in Melbourne.



FULL ORDER OF PLAY: DAY 1, US OPEN 2021

Bautista Agut, who twice reached the fourth round in New York, saved three match points to beat Diego Schwartzman for a quarter-final showing in Toronto earlier this month, while Kyrgios managed a 1-3 record on hard courts leading in, with his lone win against former World No. 5 Kevin Anderson in Atlanta.

Having completed a hat-trick of clay-court titles with victory in Kitzbüel, eighth seed Ruud notched back-to-back ATP Masters 1000 quarter-finals on hard courts in Toronto and Cincinnati leading in. The Norwegian meets 36-year-old former World No. 5 Tsonga for the first time, in what will be the Frenchman’s first event since a first-round exit at Wimbledon (l. to Ymer).

Croatian Ivo Karlovic ensured his 17th main draw appearance in New York when he won through three rounds of qualifying. The 42-year-old takes on fifth-seeded Russian Andrey Rublev, who fell in his second ATP Masters 1000 final of the season earlier this month (l. to Zverev) in Cincinnati.

As Novak Djokovic begins the final stage in his quest for the coveted Grand Slam, Rod Laver will be as eager as anyone to see the world No. 1.

Victory for Djokovic in New York would not only give him a men's record 21st major title, but would also make him the first man since Australian Laver in 1969 to win the Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and US Open in the same year.

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Australian Margaret Court (1970) and German Steffi Graf (1988) are the only other players in the Open era to complete the Grand Slam. It has eluded even tennis' great players over the past three decades.

"It is amazing, when I look at the players who have competed over the past 50 years, whether it was [Jimmy] Connors, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Pete Sampras or Roger Federer, [Rafael] Nadal and Djokovic in today's era," Laver said to ATPTour.com in 2019, the 50th anniversary of his calendar Slam.

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"[But] years ago, a lot of people didn't look at the four major tournaments as a Grand Slam. Some didn't like going down to play in Australia in December or January. Maybe it was the circumstances that they didn't feel the impact of what the Grand Slam was."

For Djokovic to be in this position at the age of 34 is little short of remarkable. Laver was 31 when he won the Grand Slam, and he never reached another major final afterward. In 2019, Laver said his motivation was still there, but a lingering elbow injury began to affect him.

Like Federer and Nadal, Djokovic has pushed the boundaries of what is considered possible. In 2016, after his Roland Garros victory, the Serb held all four majors at the same time (having won two in 2015). Unlike his two biggest rivals, he now has a very real chance at tennis immortality by doing it all in the same year.

Mats Wilander (1988), Jim Courier (1992) and Djokovic himself (2016, 2021) are the only men to win even the year's first two majors. Djokovic is the only man to win the first three majors since Laver, and he's the favorite again in New York.

Having avoided some of the more dangerous floaters in the early stages of the draw at Flushing Meadows, Djokovic will hope to ease through the first week in the face of what could be unbearable pressure on his shoulders.


Rod Laver was the last man to complete the Grand Slam, accomplishing the feat in 1969. He also did it in 1962 as an amateur. Fairfax Media/Getty Images
When Laver won in 1969, his victory came a few weeks after man had walked on the moon for the first time. Winning the Grand Slam did not quite have the same gravitas; The New York Times headline of the day was simply, "Twice is Nice."

Cliff Drysdale, a contemporary of Laver's and a longtime commentator with ESPN, said Laver had a couple of advantages over Djokovic in terms of the obstacles in his way.

"It was expected that Rocket [Laver] was going to win almost every tournament that he played in '69, which he did," Drysdale told ESPN. "But there wasn't all the hype about winning the Grand Slam, all four in one year, it just was nowhere close to what it is today."

Drysdale had beaten Laver at the US Open in 1968 on what he called "really bad grass at Forest Hills," but the following year, he had no doubt Laver was going to win.

"Tennis is one on one, it's like boxing, it's mano a mano," he said. "It has always given rise to dominant players. Once you start to dominate the field, it's easy to dominate. And that's what happens almost all the time.

"He totally dominated the year and it was Open tennis, too, so there was no excuse -- everybody who was eligible was playing in all those tournaments."

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Laver had won the Grand Slam once before, in 1962, as an amateur. His wife, Mary, was expecting their first child, due on US Open finals day. What was being written about his quest for the Grand Slam in the newspapers at the time passed him by, part of a conscious decision to stay focused.

But Djokovic's every move will be scrutinized on social media as observers try to spot any weakness. Will there be a hangover from the Olympics, where he missed out on a medal? Or will something bizarre happen like in 2020, when he was defaulted after he inadvertently hit a lineswoman with a ball?

When Laver won his two Grand Slams, three of the four majors were played on grass, with the clay courts of Roland Garros the only outlier. Half a century on, only one is played on grass and tennis has never been more physical, putting Djokovic's achievements into perspective.


"I would say that is a much tougher assignment than it was in those days," Drysdale said of the Grand Slam. "Playing on grass was much easier than playing on hard courts. The fields were not as deep as they are today. A lot of players didn't go down [to Australia]. So it was, in a lot of respects, easier to win the Grand Slam in those days than it is today. That said, [Laver] also won it in '62. And if he'd played in all the years between '62 and '69, you've got to believe that he would have won a lot more."

Laver lives in California, but the USTA said he is set to attend the US Open during finals weekend. Should Laver hand the trophy over to Djokovic on Sept. 12, it would be the icing on the cake.