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00:00Okay, the 2026 U.S. Open is here, and this year's tournament arrives with plenty of intrigue on both sides
00:05of the draw.
00:06The men's field has been shaken up, and the women's side is loaded with contenders.
00:10So over the next two weeks, New York will once again become the center of the tennis world.
00:15So who should we be watching?
00:17Who will be holding the trophy on both sides when it's all over?
00:20Joining me to break it all down and answer those questions is the host of Tuned Into Tennis with Myles
00:26David,
00:26the one and only Myles David, joining me now.
00:30Myles, what's going on, my guy? How you doing?
00:32How are you doing, Dexter, man? It's been a long time coming to get on the show with you.
00:36I'm happy to be here and chop up some U.S. Open tennis news and maybe some predictions
00:41and just, you know, get lost into the energy of the U.S. Open. I'm excited about it.
00:46Oh, yeah. No, man, I'm really proud of the work you're doing and glad to have you here.
00:50You reached out, and I was like, yeah, we got to do a preview,
00:52and I'm hoping to talk to you a little bit more throughout the tournament.
00:55So we will have some good conversations around tennis.
00:58I wanted to start out with you. Let's start on the men's side, okay?
01:02Because Yannick Center officially out, not playing in the tournament.
01:05Carlos Alcaraz, he's coming back after four months away.
01:08And suddenly, Myles, this men's tournament feels much more wide open than ever before.
01:13So with everything that has changed over the last week or so,
01:17who is your favorite to win the U.S. Open on the men's side right now and why?
01:23I mean, this has been going into with all the different storylines of the U.S. Open,
01:27one of my favorite lead-ups to this tournament,
01:29because traditionally the men's side has been kind of grappled by the same three or four players.
01:36But every once in a blue moon, every so often,
01:39you get a guy that sneaks in a la Juan Martín Del Potro way back in 2009 and so on
01:44and so forth.
01:44But with Alcaraz not being at his dominant for its best,
01:48I feel like you have to look at the guys who come in with form,
01:51because traditionally the person that wins a lead-up tournament going into New York
01:56does well or lifts the trophy.
01:58And the guys that have won big are Taylor Fritz.
02:00He won Washington, D.C.
02:02Ben Shelton won in Montreal, Canada.
02:04And then most recently, Arthur Feast of France picked up his biggest title in Cincinnati, Ohio.
02:09So those three guys come to mind as like who's playing the best
02:14on the most comparable surface going into New York.
02:17And if I'm looking at those guys and I'm talking to their teams,
02:21I'm thinking, hey, we got to put ourselves into gear to actually win this U.S. Open potentially.
02:26So yeah, those three come out to mind automatically.
02:28I like that you're talking about the guys coming in with the best form right here in the hard court
02:32season.
02:33And that's interesting because sometimes people just want to go to the big names,
02:36the names they know that have been commonly in these finals of these majors.
02:39But I wanted to ask you a little bit more about Alcaraz, right?
02:43Because we got to talk about him.
02:44He's a defending champion.
02:45But here's the big but.
02:47This is going to be his first tournament since April after that right wrist injury.
02:51So with no competitive matches for him coming into New York,
02:55what are you watching for early in this tournament that's going to tell you
02:58whether Alcaraz is actually ready to make another championship run here?
03:02It's hard for me to even look past his physical performance.
03:06So like those first couple rounds, early rounds, I'm just going to be looking to see if he's able to
03:11get through a best of five match
03:13without any obvious signs of damage or pain or discomfort to his wrist.
03:19Because, I mean, yeah, he has the aura that he's rightfully built up for himself of Carlos Alcaraz,
03:25one of the best in the last five years.
03:27He's really carried men's tennis.
03:29But if we're going off of what our eyes have seen in the last five months, we haven't seen him.
03:34So, yeah, you have to give him a shot because we know the pedigree.
03:38He's literally won in New York twice.
03:41But to be honest, if he's in the second week, I think that is a good barometer for where his
03:47game is.
03:48And then we can go from there.
03:49But unlike the guys I mentioned at the top, I wouldn't be going and thinking, hey, I'm trying to have
03:56my hands on the trophy.
03:57Of course, be competitive.
03:58But at this point in the game, it's about staying the distance and being able to compete with matches,
04:04especially against guys who have been in, you know, match format and the stress that comes with that for the
04:09last,
04:10I don't know how many months that he hasn't.
04:12And tennis can be tricky like that.
04:13If you haven't done the reps to get into a tight match situation, sometimes it doesn't all come flowing back
04:19to you.
04:20So we'll have to see what happens when he gets in some tough situation.
04:23Yeah, he's going to be he's one to watch for many reasons.
04:25But having had for not played in four months, it's going to be very interesting to see what his form
04:30will be like once he gets to New York.
04:33Now, Alexander Zarev, he finally broke through, won his first Grand Slam at Roland Garros this year.
04:39Does getting that first major change the way you view Zarev in New York?
04:43Where he's already been a finalist, we've seen that.
04:46And do you look at him as maybe is he one of like the safest picks among the men,
04:50considering all the uncertainty around Alcarez, who usually we would have as a favorite?
04:54Is Zarev one of the safe picks here to probably get to a final again?
04:58Well, he's going to be the number one seed.
05:01So eyes are going to be on him.
05:03It's just that if I look back to the one Grand Slam he did win earlier in the spring at
05:08Roland Garros,
05:09respectfully, it took a performance where the rest of the guys that are kind of his peers didn't show up.
05:15And even still, he had to really deal with some demons to get over the hurdle in that match.
05:20And kudos to him for kind of getting right back on the horse and getting to the final of Wimbledon,
05:24which is no easy feat.
05:25But since then, his hardcourt game specifically has not made him seem like he is the one to beat going
05:33into New York.
05:34And on top of that, his last couple of trips to New York haven't really resulted in deep runs.
05:38He hasn't even made a quarterfinal, I believe, since 2023.
05:43So he's going to be a factor.
05:45I just wouldn't consider him the factor.
05:48But if you're trying to go safe, I mean, he is the number one seed and has, you know, now
05:53a Grand Slam under his belt.
05:55It's just I think there are a couple of names that would probably trip him up, you know, possibly in
06:01early rounds.
06:01That's very interesting because, yeah, I do think some people are going to say, hey, he's got that Grand Slam
06:05under his belt.
06:06He's number one seed here.
06:08It might be the guy you want to pick to win it all.
06:09I have a feeling he's not going to be the guy you picked to win this all.
06:12But we're going to get to that a little bit later.
06:14Maybe not.
06:14Okay.
06:15Maybe not.
06:16Patrick McEnroe, interestingly enough, he picked Ben Shelton to win this tournament.
06:21After Shelton, we saw him winning Canada this summer.
06:23We've talked for years, a lot in the tennis community, a lot of us love sports.
06:27We've talked about when is an American man finally going to break through at a Grand Slam?
06:32Is Shelton now the American that is best equipped to do it?
06:36Or would you still put Taylor Fritz or maybe somebody else ahead of him?
06:40What do you think about Ben Shelton's chances here?
06:42I think Ben Shelton has as good a shot as any of the Americans that are playing right now.
06:47I think he is, I guess, 1A and then Taylor Fritz will be 1B because I said earlier they both
06:53come in holding some significant trophy and wins underneath their belt going into the U.S. Open.
06:58But he hasn't been to a major final yet.
07:01He's proven that he does like the best of five format and it gives him room for his big game
07:06and his competitiveness to kind of shine.
07:08But in the microcosm of just this season, the French Open and Wimbledon results haven't been great.
07:14Maybe those are some surfaces he's still working out.
07:17So I do have a little bit of pause with those two factors.
07:20The fact that he hasn't been to a final and hasn't looked great in the slams as a whole this
07:25year.
07:25But if there's anybody that can kind of use the New York energy and step up to the moment, I
07:32would bet it's Ben Shelton because he says he likes the big moment.
07:35So this is this is one.
07:36And then the other guys barely have a shot as well.
07:40Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Francis Tiafo, even Brandon Nakashima has put his name in the list with some really good
07:46results.
07:47And then Lerner Tien, if you remember, he made a splash at Australia earlier this year and has kept a
07:51steady ranking.
07:52So all of those guys combined should be putting their heads together saying, man, we got to get this done
07:57because it's been over 20 years since an American man has won any slam.
08:01And if there's going to be an opportunity, you're looking at one square in the face with Yannick Center, world
08:06number one, not being there and Carlos Alcarez being undercooked on matches.
08:10So I don't know if they have to put their powers together and create a source to get the job
08:15done, but somebody has to do it.
08:17Yeah. And you know what? When you talk about opportunity, right?
08:20Because it feels like there's so much opportunity on the men's side.
08:23I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about Novak Djokovic because it feels like there could be possibly an opportunity
08:29for him, Miles.
08:30He's still chasing Grand Slam title number 25 at age 39.
08:34So you just talked about a sinner. He's not going to be here.
08:37Alcarez coming back from injury.
08:39And, you know, Djokovic, he's continuously put himself.
08:41We've seen it deep into majors. Is this realistically one of his best remaining opportunities to get number 25?
08:48Or do you look at the physical challenge of winning seven best of five matches?
08:52Has that just become too significant for him at his age?
08:56He's at an interesting, like, point in his career, a crossroads, if you will, because he has everything you would
09:02think going into a slam
09:04and has shown us that he can still make a Grand Slam final like he did in Australia in a
09:09semifinal like he did at Wimbledon just a month or two ago.
09:12But in, however, he's also telling us that the physical toll and some of the health conditions he's battling with
09:19makes it harder to deal with the best of five format in the conditions.
09:23And it doesn't get really much more difficult conditions than a hot, sticky day or evening in New York.
09:29Yes, he is Novak Djokovic. He's had a wonderful storied career.
09:33I just think that the whole quest for 25 may be a dream deferred for him, just because there's so
09:39many guys who are now 10 plus years younger than him
09:43who can go the distance and have the legs and have the capacity, even if not to necessarily play better
09:49tennis than him, but to outstand him.
09:52And I think that's going to be a hurdle too high for him to jump over to get the U
09:57.S. Open trophy.
09:57But you can never count him out. He's still one of the best.
10:00That's fair. That's fair. It's a lot to ask. Legend, but 39 years old, going for 25, it's a lot
10:05to ask playing seven potential five-set matches going down to try to get that title.
10:11Now, let's go to the women's side here. So, Irina Sabalenka, she comes to New York.
10:16She's trying to win her third consecutive U.S. Open.
10:18And when you look at what has made her so successful on these courts, what's the biggest obstacle standing between
10:24Sabalenka and another championship here?
10:27I think it's Sabalenka herself.
10:29I think that she has shown over the years that a U.S. Open is, and the U.S. Open
10:34in general, is a happy stomping ground for her.
10:36She's made the semifinals consecutively every year since 2021.
10:40However, this season, particularly around the clay court lead-up and into Roland Garros, she's been taking some questionable L's,
10:49and it's not necessarily about her form or the X's and O's or the tactics that she's doing on the
10:54court.
10:54It's about her mental state and her emotional kind of foundation.
10:58In the last matches that she's played going into the U.S. Open, she has kind of allowed herself to
11:04combust, if you will.
11:05And that used to be something she really had to work through to get to a status of where she's
11:10a multiple-time Grand Slam champion.
11:12But I just don't know if she's going to be able to tap into the happy medium of aggressive game
11:19and what she brings to the court because we know it's great.
11:22We've seen it at the U.S. Open.
11:24And I just don't know if she's in a space right now, if things get sticky, if she's against an
11:29opponent who won't quite go away, if she's going to have the mental fortitude and stability to stick out a
11:35match.
11:35Because she's kind of checked out of a few mentally, and that's costing her potentially the world number one ranking.
11:42And there's a bunch of women behind her who may jump and get that.
11:46That mental fortitude, always important.
11:49And you also talked, Miles, about form and who's playing the best tennis right now in hardcourt season coming into
11:56this tournament.
11:56Well, on the women's side, Coco Gauff could not have asked for much better preparation after winning Cincinnati's, playing some
12:03of her best tennis of the summer.
12:04What did you see click for Coco recently?
12:06And does that make you believe that she can carry that level that we saw in Cincy into New York
12:11and win another major?
12:13If Coco doesn't believe, I believe in her.
12:16I believe for her.
12:18Watching her over the weekend, some change in Cincinnati, really felt like a culmination of all the things that she's
12:25been working on in her game strategically all season.
12:28Because her season hasn't been bad, but that was her first time in Cincinnati actually lifting a trophy after getting
12:33to finals in Miami and Rome.
12:36Then that great semifinal run in Wimbledon.
12:38She's almost been there, but then some things in her game, primarily her serve and her forehand,
12:43have kind of sort of let her down or been attackable.
12:46In Cincinnati, man, there were some times when she walked up to the service line and cracked some 124-mile
12:52-per-hour serves.
12:53I thought I was watching the 2000s version of Venus Williams.
12:56Like the court coverage, the ability to dominate off that serve and set up the point how she wants and
13:03be able to not really have too many balls go past her because her legs and court coverage are insane.
13:09They really do put her in a prime position to go deep at the U.S. Open.
13:13And she's going to be a tough out for everybody she goes up against.
13:16It's just like that right now.
13:18Yeah, right now she's playing some amazing tests.
13:20She looked really dominant, I would say, in Cincinnati.
13:23Really, really dominant.
13:24You like how it all came together for her.
13:26We'll see how far her run can go here in Queens.
13:28Now, another woman I want to talk to you about, Elena Rabakina.
13:31She's been one of the best players in the world this season, right in the fight for the number one
13:36ranking, but she retired from Cincinnati with a left ankle injury.
13:40So, assuming that she's able to play at the U.S. Open, how much does that injury change the way
13:45you evaluate her chances compared with Sabalanka, Coco, and the rest of the favorites?
13:50How do you like her chances here?
13:52If everything was kosher, then she would have a great shot.
13:56There is some caveats.
13:57The fact that she's never actually been past the fourth round of the U.S. Open does give me some
14:01pause.
14:01But then I'm given extra pause when I realize her health is maybe not at fully and 100%.
14:08And she's been a kind of a player in her past that if things aren't really clicking health-wise and
14:15she doesn't feel like it's worth the risk, she will pull out of a slam.
14:18She's done that twice in her career.
14:20And I think she is, you know, playing well, but her body may be something that's seriously going to hinder
14:26her.
14:27So, she may or may not play.
14:29If she does, I think she's very vulnerable.
14:31But she does have the weaponry to do well on these courts.
14:35Big serve, dominating ground strokes, can kind of take the rack out of everybody's hands when she's playing well.
14:41It's just if she's going to be 100% or think that she can go the distance, that's really questionable
14:46at the moment.
14:47So, we'll see with Elena Rabakina.
14:48We'll see with Rabakina.
14:49The physical and the mental coming together again.
14:52Now, like we talked about with the men, Miles, American women, once again, they've got several legitimate contenders here.
14:57We talked about Coco Gauff, Jessica Pagula, Amanda Anasmova.
15:01They're among the names to watch for American women.
15:03So, if you had to pick one American woman most likely to be playing on championship weekend, who would that
15:09be?
15:10And what separates her from the others here?
15:13I think if I had to put my chips down on somebody, it would be Jessica Pagula outside of Coco
15:19Gauff.
15:19That's because Pagula has created such a remarkable amount of consistency over the course of the last five years.
15:26Anytime you look up at a big tournament, her name is likely right there.
15:30And she has as good a chance as any as winning it.
15:33It's just that there's a certain elevation that takes place in Grand Slams deep into that final weekend.
15:40And she hasn't quite figured out how to tap into that.
15:43But depending on how things go with the draw, she may not have to.
15:47But if she goes up against some of her toughest competitors, she's going to have her work cut out against
15:53her.
15:54But I still like Pagula.
15:55I feel like she is the quintessential tennis player, a professional's professional, goes out there and puts her best performance
16:02out there.
16:03And she's coming off a great form herself, getting to the final of Cincinnati.
16:06So, if she's physically well and, you know, together, she's going to be a factor for sure.
16:13All right, Pagula, another one to watch there on the American women's side.
16:16All right, here we go, Miles.
16:17We've talked through it.
16:19We've talked about all the players.
16:20You know what time it is.
16:22Time for me to get your picks.
16:24It's time for the picks.
16:24Who wins it all for the men?
16:26Who wins it all for the women at the 2026 U.S. Open and why?
16:29Give me your picks for each side.
16:32If you're asking me, which you are, I'm going to go Ben Shelton for the men and Coco Gaul for
16:38the women.
16:39Like I said at the very top, I think we are primed to get an ATP winner on the men's
16:44tour that has not won a slam yet, given all the things that are going on.
16:48And I have faith that Ben Shelton is going to be able to lock in for two weeks and get
16:53the job done.
16:54Yes, he's never made a grand slam final, but he talks a really big and convincing game that he wants
17:02to be at the latter ends of these very important tournaments.
17:05And here's his shot to go walk and do it.
17:07It's going to take a lot of effort, obviously.
17:09Nobody's going to give it to him.
17:10But I think he has the grit and the game and obviously the serve and everything else it takes to
17:16win a U.S. Open.
17:18So going with Ben Shelton on the men's side.
17:20On the women's side, I feel like it makes the most sense to go Coco Gaul, really.
17:25She's won the U.S. Open before.
17:27She's coming in with a trophy that she's won before.
17:30And the last time she won Cincinnati, she won the U.S. Open.
17:33There may be some deja vu happening all over again, which I'm sure she would sign up for.
17:37And I think she likes the way the crowd kind of excels her game even more.
17:42She gets that one more ball back.
17:44She asks her opponent, can you put me away?
17:46She does all that stuff naturally.
17:48And if she is incorporating what we saw at Cincinnati, the ability to pop down serve in the 120s
17:54and keep her forehand at bay and not make too many errors,
17:58I'm thinking she's holding that trophy for a second time.
18:00So you are going to make the American tennis fan very happy.
18:05All-American winners on the men's and women's side, excuse me, here,
18:10that will be very interesting.
18:12You know how happy people are going to be?
18:13American tennis fans are going to be, Miles, if that happens.
18:16If Ben Shelton and Coco Gaul are raising trophies in two weeks,
18:20it's going to be a very happy time here.
18:22We're all going to be grinning and celebrating.
18:24It'll be like when the Knicks won, you know?
18:26Similar.
18:26Hey, man, the vibes here in New York are great.
18:29I think the vibes will be very good in New York again
18:32if there's an All-American winners for both the men's and women's side at the Open.
18:36It should be a really exciting Open from what you said.
18:38There's just a lot of intriguing storylines on both sides.
18:41I know you will be watching closely.
18:42You will be tuned in.
18:44And everybody, you should watch Tuned Into Tennis with Miles David.
18:48Miles David, the fantastic host to join me here to preview the U.S. Open.
18:53Miles, man, I really appreciate it.
18:55Everybody should go check that out.
18:56Subscribe to his YouTube channel.
18:57It is a fantastic one.
18:59And, Miles, we'll have to do it again.
19:00We're going to have to talk some more throughout the Open.
19:02Thank you, sir.
19:03Thank you, my man.
19:04I appreciate the chat.
19:06It's been great talking to you.
19:07And hopefully some of my predictions come true.
19:09It'll be nice.
19:10We got time and space to be happy.
19:13Coco Gaul, Ben Shelton, make us happy.
19:16They got some time.
19:17Hell, I'll tell you what.
19:18If the predictions aren't right, people will let you know in the comments.
19:20They will let you know for sure.
19:21And if they're wrong, they'll let me know, too.
19:23That is true.
19:23They will also let you know.
19:25I appreciate you, my brother.
19:28I appreciate it.
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