US Open 2023: Alcaraz, Sabalenka, and Osaka Seek Glory
NEW YORK – Four months is a long time to vanish from a sport that moves as fast as men’s tennis. Carlos Alcaraz returns on Saturday night in New York trying to make it feel like he never left.
The defending US Open champion steps back into Grand Slam combat against Russian shot-maker Roman Safiullin in the final match of the night session, his first competitive outing since a right wrist injury halted his season in April. The Australian Open title in January feels distant now, but the stakes are clear: bookend the year with majors and remind everyone why he became the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam.
He won’t be eased in.
Alcaraz’s tricky re-entry
Roman Safiullin is not the ideal opponent for a man testing out a freshly trusted wrist. The 29-year-old Russian hits flat, hard and early, and he’s already shown he can drag Alcaraz into uncomfortable territory from the baseline.
Their rivalry is delicately poised at 1-1. Safiullin stunned Alcaraz at the 2023 ATP Paris Masters, bullying him off the court indoors and exposing a rare lack of rhythm from the Spaniard. Alcaraz hit back at the Paris Olympics the following year, restoring order and pride. The memory of that upset, though, lingers.
Safiullin arrives with real credentials on the big stage. At Wimbledon, he punched through Andrey Rublev and Joao Fonseca to reach the fourth round before bowing out to Novak Djokovic in four sets. That run underlined what the locker room already knew: if you give him time and space, he can hit through almost anyone.
Alcaraz insists he’s ready to meet that fire head-on. Weeks of intense practice have rebuilt faith in his wrist. He says he can “go 100 percent”. Under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, with the defending champion’s name booming around the arena, he’ll have to.
Sabalenka walking a tightrope
On the women’s side, Aryna Sabalenka enters this US Open as a two-time defending champion and, at the same time, a player teetering on the edge of losing her world No. 1 ranking.
She opens against Colombia’s Camila Osorio, a 59th-ranked opponent she has handled twice before. Those wins came on very different stages – the lawns of Wimbledon in 2021 and the clay of Madrid in 2023 – and both followed the same pattern: Sabalenka dictating, Osorio scrambling.
This time, the context is far more fragile for the Belarusian.
Sabalenka roared through the early hard-court swing, lifting the title in Brisbane and then storming to the Australian Open final. She backed that up with a dominant double at Indian Wells and Miami, a run that seemed to cement her as the sport’s immovable force on hard courts.
Then the slide began. A quarter-final exit at Roland Garros. A fourth-round loss at Wimbledon. The aura dimmed, the draw no longer felt terrified, and suddenly the conversation shifted from “How many can she win?” to “Can she steady herself in time?”
Sabalenka isn’t backing away from the turbulence. “Throw tough challenges at me, I will come back stronger,” she says. Osorio, a tenacious counter-puncher with plenty of feel, will test that promise. If Sabalenka’s serve wobbles or the forehand starts to leak errors, the Colombian has the patience to drag this into a street fight.
Win, and Sabalenka keeps the three-peat dream alive and the No. 1 battle in her own hands. Slip early, and the ranking – and her New York stranglehold – could be gone in a flash.
Osaka back on her favourite stage
Naomi Osaka knows these courts better than almost anyone in the draw. Two of her four Grand Slam titles came here, in 2018 and 2020, and the hard courts of Flushing Meadows still feel like home.
“I think I’ve proven myself here, so I can kind of bank on that and use that to have confidence,” she said recently. That history matters for a player who has rebuilt her career piece by piece.
Osaka’s path back has been anything but linear. She spoke openly about her mental health, stepped away from the sport to address it, then took a 15-month break to focus on motherhood before returning in 2023. The comeback has been careful, deliberate, and increasingly promising.
The results this summer hint at real momentum. She reached the semi-finals in Washington, then backed that up with a quarter-final run in Toronto in August. On grass, she produced her best Wimbledon performance in 2026, reaching the quarter-finals and toppling Sabalenka along the way – a statement win that suggested her peak level is returning.
Now she opens against Russia’s Anastasia Zakharova, ranked 101st and facing Osaka for the first time. On paper, it’s a gentle reintroduction to New York’s cauldron. In reality, Osaka will want more than just progress; she’ll want authority. A quick, clean start would send a message to the rest of the field that she’s not here simply to feel her way back into Slam life.
Day 2 at the US Open will be crowded with big names and heavy storylines. For Alcaraz, Sabalenka and Osaka, it’s more than just a first-round hurdle. It’s a test of rust, resolve and revival – and a glimpse of how much this fortnight might reshape the season.
