“Once the energy went down at the end of the second set, I never felt again a good energy,” Fils said after his surprising four-set loss to Stefanos Tsitsipas (Getty)

An hour into his US Open, all appeared to be going according to plan for Arthur Fils. A little sweatier and muggier than he might have liked, perhaps, but he was exactly where most of us expected him to be: Up 6-4, 5-2 over Stefanos Tsitsipas in their first-round match in Louis Armstrong Stadium.

Every factor was trending Fils’ way.

The 22-year-old No. 10 seed was healthy, which hasn’t always been the case so far in his young career. He had just won his first Masters 1000 title, in Cincinnati, on similar hard courts. In the final, he had grabbed the third set from Frances Tiafoe with a leaping surge of intensity and won it 6-0. Because of that, this dynamic, heavy-hitting athlete had put himself on the short list of candidates to win the Open.

He had also won all five of his previous matches against Tsitsipas. In their most recent meeting, he bulldozed the Greek out of the Miami Open 6-0, 6-1. It was one of the many poor results that had sent Tsitsipas, a former world No. 3, plummeting to No. 53 in 2026, and led him to finally end his coaching relationship with his father, Apostolos, in June.

Now Fils was serving at 5-3 for a two-set lead, against a player who had come back from that deficit to win just twice in his 10-year career. Fils won the first point, but something odd happened on the second. Early in the rally, he rushed his swing and sent a wild forehand into the alley to make it 15-15. Same thing on the next point: He rushed his second serve and double faulted into the net for 15-30. After that, a netted backhand left him at 15-40.

“This is being presented out of nowhere,” one commentator said.

“He seems to have lost all intensity and even that bit of swagger,” another agreed.

That was all Tsitsipas needed to rekindle some long-lost self-belief. He sent a backhand skidding down the line for a winner and the break. From there, the match spun 180 degrees. Tsitsipas was the better, more energized, more aggressive player. He hit more aces (14 to 10) and more winners (51 to 38), and came to net twice as often (32 to 16). He closed the match with an ace for a love hold, and the best win of his season.

Where did Fils suddenly go so wrong?

“I don’t really know,” he said when he was asked the same question. “I don’t have the answer.”

“Once the energy went down at the end of the second set, I never felt again a good energy,” he said. “I have to talk with my team, but at my level, to do such a mistake is almost unprofessional.”

Asked about possible back or hip trouble after his long two weeks in Cincy, he denied it.

“Everything perfect,” he said.

Asked if felt the pressure of being a favorite, he said no.

“If I had any pressure, I think I would have start the match pretty bad. But I felt OK. I felt relaxed. I start the match OK,” he said. “So I think it was no pressure. Just some settings were not the best for me today.”

His conclusion: “The ball was not going very well out of my racquet.”

Fils has a relentless, labor-intensive style; unlike players with easy power, you can see the effort in every long swing, and hear it in every loud grunt. It wouldn’t be surprising if best-of-five took its toll on him

For all of Fils’ success, he’s a relative Grand Slam novice. This was just the 11th he has entered, and he has made the fourth round just once. Injuries forced him to miss four in a row in 2025 and 2026.

He has a relentless, labor-intensive style; unlike players with easy power, you can see the effort in every long Fils swing, and hear it in every loud grunt. It wouldn’t be surprising if best-of-five took its toll on him. He’ll likely need to find a way to pace himself and cut points shorter at the majors. Last year, he won a classic five-setter over Jaume Munar in Paris, but had to default in the next round with a back injury that kept him out for most of the rest of the season. On Monday, the New York humidity may have sapped his energy and kept him from mounting any sort of a comeback in the last two sets.

As we know, though, no tennis match is entirely physical. Fils’ collapse at 5-3 in the second was psychological as well—he rushed virtually every shot he hit in that game. While he denied that he felt any pressure, it’s probably not a coincidence that this was the first Slam where he was touted as a true contender.

Fils wouldn’t be the first top-tier player to start slowly at the Slams. Roger Federer himself didn’t get past the quarterfinals in his first 16 majors. Fils isn’t Federer, of course. But he’s going to be better at the Open, and the other majors, than he was on Monday.

Coco Gauff will start her Open exactly where and when you would expect: At night in Ashe, against 53rd-ranked Zeynap Sonmez (Getty)

The Open concludes its first round of singles on Tuesday. Here are six highlights

Coco Gauff vs. Zeynap Sonmez
Gauff didn’t think her brilliant title run in Cincinnati would mean a whole lot in New York. Now she’s in New York, so we’ll see if she was right. The 2023 champ served and played and hit her forehand as well as she ever has to win that WTA 1000 in Cincy, and she was almost as good at Wimbledon, where she nearly made the final. I’m guessing that form won’t fade away any time soon.

She’ll start her Open campaign, as expected, at night in Ashe. That alone might be worth an early break against Sonmez, a 24-year-old from Turkey who has played just two main-draw matches at Flushing Meadows. Ranked 53rd and a slightly undersized 5-foot-7, she has never faced Gauff. More important, she has never faced her here. Winner: Gauff

Madison Keys vs. Alina Korneeva
Tuesday’s opener in Ashe shouldn’t be the usual blowout fodder we see so often in that stadium. Korneeva, 19 and 5-foot-11, has been on the junior-prodigy radar since she won the Australian Open and French Open girls’ titles in 2023 at 15. This year she has begun to make good on that potential, moving from 210 at the start of the year to 69 today.

Her breakout came a couple of weeks ago in Toronto, where she emerged from qualifying to beat Emma Navarro and Iva Jovic. She’s never played Keys, never played a US Open main-draw match, and, of course, never played in Ashe. How she handles all of that will tell us something about how quickly she’s going to crack the Top 50 and beyond. But I’ll take the American in New York for now. Winner: Keys

Taylor Fritz vs. Darwin Blanch
Every player wants to be on the big stage, but Open schedulers may have done a favor to Blanch by not giving him the night session in Ashe for this one. A day match vs. a Top 10 countryman will probably be nerve-wracking enough for the 18-year-old Floridian.

Blanch has been a highly touted U.S. prospect for a few years now, and spent time training at the Ferrero Academy. He’s a lefty with a two-handed backhand that’s smoother than those of most of his fellow Americans. At 6-foot-4, he has the height, but at 184 pounds, he may not have the muscle for the big time just yet. After a year on the Challenger circuit, he’s ranked 245th, and has lost in the first round at his last six events. Still, this will be an interesting showcase of who may be coming next in U.S. tennis. Winner: Fritz

Lorenzo Musetti vs. Arthur Fery
One of the highlights of the men’s day pits these two 24-year-olds—one from Italy, the other from Great Britain—against each other in the Grandstand. Musetti is a Top 20 fixture, while Fery stole the stage during his semifinal run at Wimbledon two months ago. Both guys are coming off a strong result—Musetti made the quarters in Cincy, while Fery made the final in Winston-Salem. Together they should be shot-making fun. Winner: Fery

Gael Monfils vs. Adolfo Daniel Vallejo
In 2005, I walked out to a side court to see an 18-year-old Monfils in person for the first time. The year before, he had won the first three legs of the junior Grand Slam, and he looked like the ATP athlete of the future. But it didn’t take long for me to turn my head and start watching the 18-year-old on the other side of the net with the strange name: Novak Djokovic. An exhausted Djokovic walked to the sideline in the middle of the match, but still found a way past Monfils in five. We didn’t know it yet, but a lifelong pattern had been set.

21 years later, Djokovic collapsed again, but couldn’t survive his first round this time. On Tuesday his fellow 39-year-old, Monfils, will begin his final Open campaign, at night in Armstrong. He’s never faced Vallejo, a 22-year-old from Paraguay who is ranked 60th and has had some good results on clay this year.

I’m going to guess that, in the grand Monfilsian tradition, this will go five sets, will be highly entertaining, and will end in victory…for Vallejo. Winner: Vallejo

Alex Eala vs. Mary Stoiana
I wouldn’t have expected these two young players—Eala is 21, Stoiana 23—to have already faced each other. Neither has been on tour for that long, and one them (Eala) spends most of her time at top-level WTA events while the other (Stoiana) travels the lower-level WTA125 circuit. But they did meet, two years ago, at a 100k event in Maryland, and Eala won in straight sets. Since then, Eala has soared to No. 18, and her first title in D.C. this summer.

Those results, and her mighty fan army from the Philippines, has earned her a night-session slot in Armstrong. But while Stoiana has made slower progress, to No. 122, she just won three qualifying matches here, and two years ago she led Texas A&M to an NCAA women’s title. You don’t do that if you don’t know how to compete. Winner: Eala

Photo: Andrew Henkelman

By the time Novak Djokovic made it to the interview room in the wee hours of Monday morning, he was in no mood to mince words or sugarcoat anything. Or stick around any longer than was absolutely necessary.

“I pretty much despised every moment I spent on the court,” Djokovic said after his five-set, first-round shock loss to Mariano Navone at the US Open.

Unfortunately for Djokovic, there were a lot of moments in this match—4 hours and 36 minutes’ worth. He said his physical struggles began in the fourth game, and basically never ended. His body was quickly encased in sweat. Between points, he walked as if an anvil had been dropped on his shoulders. He tried to end points with slapped forehands, and slumped over in his chair during changeovers. He made 70 errors.

“I think it was obvious that it was an awful feeling on the court for me,” he said.

Djokovic found a way through the second and third sets, and went up a break in the fourth. After three hours of gloom, he even managed to raise his arm to try to fire up the fans, who were firmly in his corner, and who mostly stayed until the bitter midnight end.

But the 25-year-old Navone, with his relative youth and clay-courter’s consistency, didn’t let him off the hook. What turned out to be the final blow came at 3-2 in the fourth. Navone pushed Djokovic wide to his forehand side, and Djokovic collapsed onto the court, laid down, and flopped his arm across his face in a look of despair and surrender. His back never recovered.

“I won a set and then [the] third one,” he said. “Then I was, like, ‘OK, maybe there is a chance.’”

“The back just gave up in the end and shoulder, and I couldn’t close it out.”

We can probably table the talk of Djokovic’s retirement and legacy, and just hope that the game’s greatest player gets through whatever is ailing him, and stops despising every moment he’s on a tennis court.

At this point, after watching Djokovic’s rivals, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, wind down their careers in increasingly painful fashion in their late 30s, tennis fans know all about the inevitable decline of great champions. We’ve been watching something similar happen to Djokovic for two years now. But his problems on Sunday went beyond the aging process, into something more mysterious and concerning.

“It’s something that I’ve been carrying, unfortunately, pretty much every match this year,” Djokovic said. “You know, vomiting, throwing up, a serious issue there. Then my whole body, you know, starts to collapse, basically cramping and pain.”

Nobody has revealed a diagnosis, and so far we’re left purely with speculation. But it does seem clear that this is more than a “Father Time is undefeated” situation. Last night Djokovic didn’t say he was considering hanging up his sticks, and he didn’t walk off Ashe as if he were never coming back. For now, we can probably table the talk of his retirement and his legacy, and just hope that the game’s greatest player can get through whatever’s ailing him, and stop despising every moment he’s on a tennis court.

Arthur Fils just won his first Masters 1000, in Cincy. Monday he’ll start his quest for his first Slam, against Stefanos Tsitsipas (Getty)

Normally, I do three picks per day. But Monday at the Open has too many intriguing encounters to narrow it down that far. Here’s a turbo-tour through eight of the best from the Day 2 OOP.

Aryna Sabalenka vs. Camila Osorio
Sabalenka is ranked 58 spots higher than Osorio, leads their head-to-head 2-0, and has five inches on her. But the Colombian has pushed her to 6-4, 7-5 on the fast clay in Madrid in the past. Sabalenka’s form will be the No. 1 factor in this women’s Open. We’ll get out first look at it here, early in the day in Ashe. Winner: Sabalenka

Carlos Alcaraz vs. Roman Safiullin
Like Sabalenka, Alcaraz’s game is the biggest question mark on the men’s side. If he’s significantly rusty or still hampered, all bets in the draw are off. Safiullin, despite his less-than-intimidating ranking (99) and 2026 record (3-4), should force the Spaniard to find something approaching his normal level. Their head-to-head is 1-1, and Safiullin is 1-0 against Carlitos on hard courts. Winner: Alcaraz

Frances Tiafoe vs. Martin Damm Jr.
These two Americans played at the Open last year, and Tiafoe won a tight four-setter over the 22-year-old Damm, who can bomb a lefty serve with the best of them. Tiafoe has had some injury questions lately. and his high expectations here may produce a few jitters to start. Winner: Tiafoe

Arthur Fils vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas
Right from the start, the Frenchman has owned the Greek. He won their first match when he was 19, and it has only gone downhill from there for Tsitsipas; in Miami this year, he could muster just one game against Fils. Still, this is a Slam, this is Armstrong, this is best-of-five, and this match should have its moments. Winner: Fils

Ben Shelton vs. Tallon Griekspoor
Shelton admits he’s coming into the Open with “a lot of emotions,” and wants to make up for last year’s third-round retirement. He’ll have all of Ashe behind him for this night match, but Griekspoor is strong and solid enough to make him earn it, and make him keep all of those emotions under control. They’ve never played. Winner: Shelton

Matteo Berrettini vs. Stan Wawrinka
Yes, this late-afternoon Grandstand battle has sentimental value: It might be the 41-year-old Wawrinka’s last match at a major after more than two decades on tour. But it could also be a fine fight in its own right. He and Berrettini played in the first round at Wimbledon as well, and the Italian won a four-tiebreaker shootout. One of those breakers went to 18-16. Winner: Berrettini

Taylor Townsend vs. Maja Chwalinska
Chwalinska is six years younger, ranked 74 spots higher, and has reached a Slam final this season, while Townsend is hovering close to the No. 100 mark. But Townsend traditionally raises her game for the Open, and the Open crowd helps raise her up some more. Between them, these two lefties have court craft to spare. They’ve never played. Winner: Townsend

Learner Tien vs. Nuno Borges
Tien is another in the list of American contenders—maybe not for the title, in his case, but a spot in the quarters seems plausible. He’s 2-0 against Borges, though the 29-year-old Portuguese should have good memories from his late-night war with Tommy Paul here a year ago. Winner: Tien

After being forced to retire last year, Shelton says he “has a lot of emotions here.” Just as in 2025, he comes to New York in something close to peak form (Getty)

“Sorry that I’m coming in hot today,” Ben Shelton said after firing off the first answer at his pre-tournament presser on Friday.

The topic was, of all things, the “serve quality” stats that IBM produces for the tours. Shelton feels—strongly—that the numbers underrate the effectiveness of his kick delivery, and it “pisses me off.”

“They’re like, ‘Oh, that serve quality out of 10 is a 7.5. And I’m like, ‘No it’s not.’”

“I’m passionate about this, all right?” he said when his rant was over, to laughter from around the room.

Fortunately, that’s not all Shelton says he’s passionate about at the moment. This year’s US Open is more than just the final Grand Slam of 2026 for him. It’s also a chance to make up for last year, when he came in playing the best tennis of his career, only to be forced to retire with a shoulder injury in the third round. If anything, Shelton says he may need to rein himself in.

“Obviously this is a tournament that I have a lot of emotions here, it’s my favorite tournament of the year,” he says. “Sometimes you have to be able to downplay that.”

Shelton sees “so much opportunity” for himself in the two weeks ahead. It’s a statement that could apply to all 28 Americans—14 men and 14 women—in the Open’s singles draws. It’s also a statement that has been true for a while now. Writers like myself have been touting the Americans’ improved chances at the Slams, and especially at their home Slam, since the start of the 2020s.

Numbers-wise, the last decade has been a stunning success. The U.S. has gone from having relatively few players in the Top 100, to outdistancing every other country by solid margins. But that has yet to produce similar success at the pinnacle of the sport, a place the U.S. once owned. In the 2020s, three American women—Sofia Kenin, Madison Keys, and Coco Gauff—have won four majors between them. On the men’s side, as we’re all too aware, nobody has won a Slam since 2003, and only one, Taylor Fritz, has made a final this decade.

“I have a lot of big hopes for where I want to be and what I want to achieve this year, and I’ve been doing it,” says Frances Tiafoe, who is back up to No. 12 in the rankings

So here we go with our annual U.S.-tennis stress test. I’m picking two Americans—Shelton and Gauff—to win the singles titles. Am I crazy? Probably. (See my men’s and women’s previews here and here.

But, as Shelton says, the opportunity is there. And as Gauff said in her own presser on Friday, “the expectations are high.”

On the men’s side, that opportunity begins with who isn’t in the draw: The ATP’s No. 1 player and recent Wimbledon champion, Jannik Sinner. The Italian has been a dream-crusher for the American men: He’s a combined 18-3 against Shelton, Fritz, and Frances Tiafoe.

The opportunity continues with Sinner’s rival, Carlos Alcaraz. The Spaniard, who is seeded second this year, has also been a one-man U.S. wrecking crew: He’s 10-2 against Shelton, Fritz, and Tiafoe. But while Alcaraz is in the event, he’ll be playing for the first time since April, and his draw is borderline brutal: Shelton, Arthur Fils, Alexander Bublik, and Tommy Paul are in his quarter, and Djokovic is in his half.

Can the U.S. men find a way to fill these openings? Right now, the answer seems to be as close to a yes as it has been in a long time. Fritz won the 500 in D.C. a month ago. Shelton won the Masters 1000 in Montreal a week later. Tiafoe made the final in Cincinnati after that, and is back up to No. 12. Brandon Nakashima, with a new coach and a new serve, reached the final in Canada and the semis in Cincy, and has himself at a career high No. 17.

Shelton is probably the best bet of this group, but his draw may force him to go through Fils, Alcaraz, Djokovic, and Zverev to win the title. Tiafoe has a slightly easier prospective path. Two years ago, he reached the semis here, and his reascension with coach Mark Kovacs this season has been a year-long project. Tiafoe has refocused on his fitness, and the results have come.

“I’m not the same person, not even close,” Tiafoe says, thinking back to a year ago. “I wanted to be that guy who showed up every single week. I have a lot of big hopes for where I want to be and what I want to achieve this year, and I’ve been doing it.”

As for the opportunity that Sinner’s absence brings, Tiafoe says he’s not thinking about it.

“It’s the same conversation. Still gotta beat seven guys however way you slice it.”

“The expectations are high,” says Gauff, who played some of the most confident tennis of her career in Cincy. Her Open draw keeps her away from Swiatek and Sabalenka until late (Getty)

It’s a conversation that Tiafoe’s WTA compatriots know all too well. While Gauff made it through seven rounds in 2023, two other Americans, Jessica Pegula and Amanda Anisimova, lost in the final the last two years, both times to Aryna Sabalenka in close two-setters.

Sabalenka, unlike Sinner, is in the draw, and unlike Alcaraz, she hasn’t been hurt. But she also hasn’t been playing like a favorite or a two-time defending champion. Since winning the Sunshine Double in March, she has reached just one semifinal, and her form this summer has been underwhelming at best.

This is obviously music to the ears of Pegula, the No. 1-ranked American who is looking for her first Slam title at age 32, and who, if the seeds hold, will face Sabalenka in the semis for the second straight year.

“You kind of know there’s not one or two super dominant players where you feel like they have to lose in order for you to have a chance,” she says. “It seems to me like maybe more open.”

“I think I’m a much better player now,” she adds, looking back at her defeats to Sabalenka. “To be honest, I think I’m doing a lot of things better now.”

Anisimova feels the same way. She has had her ups and downs since she made the final 12 months ago, but she has shown signs of her 2025 form of late, and the conviction that came with it.

“You kind of know there’s not one or two super dominant players where you feel like they have to lose in order for you to have a chance,” Jessica Pegula says.

“It was a very positive week for me in Cincinnati, and I feel like I really picked up my level,” says Anisimova, who is near French Open champion Mirra Andreeva in the draw, and in the opposite half from Sabalenka. “I thought it was great for me coming into this tournament.”

If the stars are aligning for any U.S. player, though, it’s Gauff. She just won a title in Cincinnati, and nearly made the Wimbledon final. She has put, at least for the time being, her serve and forehand woes from a year ago behind her. And she won’t face Swiatek until the semis, and Sabalenka until the final.

Gauff, like Shelton, says she’s going to do her best to find that magic balance point, where she does whatever she can to take advantage of her opportunity, without letting the expectations, from herself or others, overwhelm her.

Gauff, like Shelton, says she’ll do her best to find that magic balance, where she does whatever she can to take advantage of her opportunity, without letting the expectations, from herself or others, overwhelm her.

“I probably will be playing here 10-plus years, but in the grand scheme of life it’s not really that many opportunities you get to play here,” Gauff said on Friday. “I just try to enjoy each and every single time I’m out here. Obviously nothing is promised, whereas before I was just so focused on winning that the experience wasn’t as enjoyable for me. Sometimes I’ll win a match here and feel more relief than pride. I want to switch that.”

Am I crazy to pick Shelton and Gauff to win? Probably. But the fact that we can put so many U.S. players in the title conversation right now is accomplishment enough for today.

Novak Djokovic has made a point in recent years of trying to get off the court quickly in his US Open opener. Can he do it again vs. Argentine baseliner Mariano Navone? (Getty)

Sunday starts are a double-edged sword. On the plus side, giving people another weekend day to watch Grand Slam tennis is a win for everyone, and for the sport. On the minus side, the days that come after will feel a little bit thinner without the 40 matches scheduled for Sunday.

Here’s a look ahead at three of those 40 contests.

*****

Novak Djokovic vs. Mariano Navone
It has been a tradition for many years that Djokovic plays the first or second night match at the Open. I thought, before I looked it up, that it was also a tradition that he dropped a set in that match, as he shook off the early nerves and adjusted to the surround-sound in Ashe. But it has only happened three times in the last decade, to Jerzy Janowicz in 2016, Marton Fuscovics in 2018, and Holger Rune in 2021. Since then, Djokovic hasn’t wasted any time getting off the court in his opener.

Can Navone keep him out there a little longer? He’s 25, ranked 48th—up from No. 75 at the start of the year—and has never played Djokovic. He’s also Argentine, which means he likes clay more than hard courts; he won his only career title earlier this year on dirt in Bucharest. Considering that Djokovic couldn’t have played anyone ranked in the Top 32, and that Navone has been in form this season, this isn’t the easiest first-round matchup.

But it’s probably not the toughest, either. The key stats may be Navone’s height (5-foot10) and average first-serve speed (109 m.p.h.). That means he’s going to have to out-grind Djokovic from the baseline. And that means he’ll probably lose. Winner: Djokovic

Tommy Paul vs. Coleman Wong
Paul has an interesting opportunity: Win three matches and he could face Carlos Alcaraz, a player he has beaten twice, and played close one other time, on hard courts. Granted, those matches all happened at least three years ago. But after so much time off, this may not be the Alcaraz we’ve come to know over those last few seasons.

First things first, of course: Paul has to take care of Coleman Wong in an afternoon match in Armstrong on Sunday. The two have never played, and, on paper, there’s not much reason to think that a player ranked 92nd will give Paul a test. But that 92 is Wong’s career-high, earned after his semifinal run in Los Cabos earlier this summer. The 22-year-old Wong, like his fellow Rafa Academy pupil Alex Eala, is a feisty, energetic, upbeat competitor, and I doubt he’ll go away easily on a stage like this.

Where is Paul’s career as the 2026 Slam season ends? He’s had had his moments this year—a win over Zverev, a title in Houston, a 36-16 record. But he also turned 29, he’s 13 spots off his career-ranking of No. 8, and there are other Americans, such as Ben Shelton, Frances Tiafoe, and Brandon Nakashima, who have passed him in the U.S. pecking order. Winner: Paul

Thiago Agustin Tirante vs. Adrian Mannarino
Why recommend a match between two unseeded players, one of whom is 38 and the other of whom has been outside the Top 100, and largely unknown, for most of his career?

First, if you happen to be the Open, little Court 6 will be an ideal place to watch, and hear, and feel Tirante’s serve, which he can get into the 140s without looking like he’s breaking a sweat, and without standing any taller than 6-foot-1.

Second, Tirante’s power and Mannarino’s veteran guile should make for an interesting contrast in styles. The Italian has been on the rise the last few months, but the Frenchman has been staving off harder-hitters for about 20 years now. Winner: Tirante

Coco Gauff’s draw keeps her away from Swiatek until the semis, and Sabalenka until the final (Getty)

For most of the 2020s, the women’s Grand Slams have started with a solid favorite: From 2022 to 2024, it was Iga Swiatek; from 2024 to the early part of this year, it was Aryna Sabalenka.

This US Open is different. Sabalenka is still the top seed, and she’s the two-time defending champion. But she’s not playing like a Slam favorite. Since winning the Sunshine Double in March, she has reached just one semifinal. There weren’t any signs of improvement in Toronto or Cincy, either; she lost in the fourth round of both.

That leaves us with a more fluid dynamic, with several players—Coco Gauff, Iga Swiatek, Jessica Pegula, maybe even Alex Eala—jockeying for position over the summer.

When the tournament starts, two recent WTA trends will clash. On the one hand, there have been seven straight different women’s major winners, and two first timers, Mirra Andreeva and Linda Noskova, took home the trophies at the French and Wimbledon in 2026. On the other hand, in recent years the Open has become the place where order has been restored: Sabalenka and Swiatek have won three of the last four.

Which will it be this year, more surprise, or a return to the norm? Bracket breakdown below.

First Quarter

The Open has become Sabalenka’s refuge. Since the start of 2024, she has won here twice, while failing to win any other major. Once upon a time, Ashe Stadium and its crowd drove her into a racquet smashing rage; but that experience seems to have forced her to do everything she can to keep her cool when she’s at the Open.

She’ll need that cool again; more important, she’ll need to play much better than she did in losses to Alexandrova and Bejlek this summer. There are potentially stronger players than those two in her quarter, including Noskova, Barbora Krejcikova, Marta Kostyuk, and Diana Shnaider, who sent Sabalenka out of the French in a 6-0 third set.

Player of Interest: Marta Kostyuk
She’s never been past the fourth round here, but before 2026, she had never done much at the French or Wimbledon, either. This year she reached the semifinals of both. She could play Noskova in the fourth round, and Sabalenka in the quarters.

First-round matches to watch
Sabalenka vs. Camila Osorio
Maja Chwalinska vs. Taylor Townsend
Sloane Stephens vs. Clara Tauson

Semifinalist: Kostyuk

Second Quarter

Pegula may be the most interesting question mark in the field. She’s ranked third, she’s 45-12 in 2026, she just made finals in Cincy, D.C., and Berlin, and she has been edging closer at the Slams for three or four years . But she hasn’t shown that she can win one. Are we waiting in vain for her to get over the hump? As pure as her timing is, does she just lack a little bit of the first-strike offense that wins most non-clay majors?

Her draw looks good through four rounds—Cirstea, Paolini, and Fernandez are the seeds nearest her. But the quarters could be tricky—there she might meet Wimbledon finalist Karolina Muchova or perennial tough out Elina Svitolina.

Player of Interest: Karolina Muchova
She just made the Wimbledon final, and she has twice been a semifinalist at the Open. In 2024, she lost to Pegula in the semis after winning the first set 6-1. But as usual with Muchova, she followed up her Wimbledon run with an announcement that she underwent an unnamed “minor surgical procedure,” forcing her to miss Toronto and Cincy.

First-round matches to watch
Venus Williams vs. Sofia Kenin
Emma Navarro vs. Lois Boisson

Semifinalist: Pegula

Naomi Osaka has been inching closer to Slam contention for a year; how close can she get at the Open, where she’s a two-time champ? (Getty)

Third Quarter

Gauff didn’t want to hear any theories about whether her title run in Cincy promised more of the same in New York. She knows every week is a new one. Still, she has been playing top-flight tennis for a few months now, and she’ll have everyone in Ashe Stadium to help rattle her opponents. It’s worked before.

How about her draw? It’s pretty good. The first seed she could face is Bejlek; the young Czech was the story of Cincy, but Gauff quickly terminated her run in the semis. In the fourth round, she might get Eala or Iva Jovic; and in the quarters it could be Andreeva or Amanda Anisimova. I would take this version of Coco over any of them.

Player of Interest: Alexandra Eala
Gauff will have the biggest and loudest fanbase, but Eala’s army won’t be far behind. More important, she has shown she’s a title contender this summer, winning her first in D.C. In New York, she could face her friend Iva Jovic in the third round, and Andreeva in the fourth.

New Face: Lilli Tagger
The long and lean 18-year-old Austrian—she’s 6’1—with the one-handed backhand might play Anisimova in the second round

First-round match to watch
Anisimova vs. Ashlyn Krueger

Semifinalist: Gauff

Fourth Quarter

Elena Rybakina is the No. 2 seed, but if you haven’t heard any buzz about her, there’s a good reason why: She suffered an ankle injury in Cincy and isn’t sure she’s going to play in New York. If she does, she’ll go in with virtually no practice reps.

That may leave this quarter more open for it’s second-highest seed, Swiatek. The 2022 champ comes here in her finest form of the year—she has won 10 of her last 11, and the title in Toronto. On paper, she looks safe into the fourth round, where she could face Madison Keys or Belinda Bencic.

Player of Interest: Naomi Osaka
Osaka has been working her way back into Slam contention for a little over a year now; the Open would be a logical place for her to step back onto the podium. She’s near Rybakina in the draw, and would benefit greatly from her withdrawal; Rybakina just beat her in three sets in Toronto. An Osaka-Swiatek quarterfinal would be a crowd-pleaser.

First-round match to watch: Keys vs. Alina Korneeva
Korneeva is a 5-foot-11, 19-year-old Russian who looks destined for big things—maybe sooner than later.

Semifinalist: Osaka

Semifinals
Pegula d. Kostyuk; Gauff d. Osaka

Final
Gauff d. Pegula

One factor looms above all others as the men’s event starts: Carlos Alcaraz’s form (Getty)

What’s the best word to describe this men’s season? I might choose “injury-stalled.” Just as the ATP’s next era, and next rivalry, were picking up steam, they fizzled entirely in 2026. First Carlos Alcaraz was sidelined by a wrist injury and missed the French Open and Wimbledon. Now that Alcaraz is finally back, it’s Jannik Sinner who is MIA for the US Open, with a knee issue. They’ve played just once this season, in Monte Carlo.

That’s bad news for most fans, and for the men’s game as a whole. But it’s not so bad if you’re a player who has been banging his head against the Sincaraz ceiling for the last three years. Not only is Sinner out, but Alcaraz will be playing competitively for the first time since the middle of April.

In Paris, we saw Alexander Zverev take advantage of their absence to win his first major title. Could someone else do the same in New York? Or, could a certain player win his 25th?

Below, a breakdown of the draw

First Quarter
After 13 seasons and 41 majors, the 29-year-old Zverev takes his first turn as a top seed at a Slam. Is he the favorite, too?

I would pencil in a tentative yes, for a few reasons.

Sinner is out, Alcaraz lacks matches, Novak Djokovic is 39, and nobody else in the field, with the exception of 41-year-old wild card Stan Wawrinka, has ever won a Slam. Zverev was also just a couple of points from winning the Open in 2020, and he has a decent 28-10 record here.

Maybe most important, he can’t face Alcaraz or Djokovic until the final. The top-ranked names in his quarter are Alex De Minaur, Lorenzo Musetti, Rafael Jodar, and Casper Ruud. I’d say Zverev, who is 18-2 at the Slams in 2026, would be favored over any of them in best-of-five.

Player of Interest: Rafael Jodar
This spring the 19-year-old broke through where Spaniards tend to break through, on clay. But at 6’3—was it just me, or did he seem to add an inch or two this summer?—he has the serve and pace for hard courts, too. So much so that he won the Open boys’ title in 2024. He and Ruud could collide in the third round.

First-round matches to watch:
Zverev vs. Lorenzo Sonego
Musetti vs. Arthur Fery

Semifinalist: Zverev

Second Quarter
Opportunities may abound in this section, where Felix Auger Aliassime and Flavio Cobolli are the top two seeds. As good as they both can be, neither would be called a lock to make a Slam semifinal.

If either of those two go out, the most obvious beneficiary would be Taylor Fritz, who was runner-up here in 2024. But is it possible the Californian has already peaked at 28? His 2026 has been marred by knee tendinitis, and his ranking is down to No. 9. In Cincy last week, he gave away the type of close third set, to Brandon Nakashima, that he usually wins. Still, Fritz does seem to have a manageable path to a fourth-round encounter with Cobolli.

Players of Interest: Learner Tien and Jakub Mensik
They’re both in the Top 20, they’re a contrast in style and size, and they might face off in the third round.

Waving Goodbye: Gael Monfils
To me, he doesn’t look all that different at 40 than he did at 20, and he can still drop your jaw with his acrobatics. But this will be La Monf’s final go-round in New York, where he made the quarters four times and the semis once. Get there early to see him; he lost his opener at the other two majors he played this year.

First-round matches to watch
Fritz vs. 18-year-old American Darwin Blanch
Tien vs. Nuno Borges
Monfils vs. Adolfo Daniel Vallejo

Semifinalist: Cobolli

Ben Shelton is a contender, but he might have to go through Fils, Alcaraz, and Djokovic just to make the final (Getty)

Third Quarter
Good things, possibly, come to those who hang around long enough. By which I mean, Djokovic has another chance at Slam No. 25. Neither of the two players who beat him at the French and Wimbledon, Joao Fonseca and Jannik Sinner, are in the draw. And the guy who beat him at the Australian, Alcaraz, is likely going to be crazy rusty to start.

Djokovic has played—and lost—just one match since Wimbledon. But when he’s healthy, it’s still very rare for him to lose at a Slam to anyone other than Sinner or Alcaraz.

There are a few players in this quarter who could conceivably pull it off on the right day: Andrey Rublev, Daniil Medvedev, Frances Tiafoe, Brandon Nakashima, and Matteo Berrettini, who might be Djokovic’s second-round opponent. But would you pick any of them against the Djoker, even now?

Americans of Interest: Tiafoe and Nakashima
They’ve had strong seasons with new coaches, and looked as sharp as anyone in Cincy. If the seeds hold, Tiafoe will play Medvedev in the fourth round, and Nakashima will play Djokovic.

Waving Goodbye: Stan Wawrinka
The late-bloomer and future Hall-of-Famer won this title in 2016, at 31. Now he’s 41 and heading for the exit with his legendary one-handed backhand in tow. He’ll open against Berrettini.

First-round matches to watch
Tiafoe vs. 6-foot-8 lefty American Martin Damm Jr.
Berrettini vs. Wawrinka

Semifinalist: Djokovic

Fourth Quarter
One factor must be considered above all at this year’s men’s Open: Alcaraz’s form. How is the defending champ going to look—and hit, and run—after four and a half months away? He’ll be jumping straight into the fire of best-of-five in Ashe. But maybe that’s how the Spanish showman will want it.

Either way, Alcaraz will need to sharpen up pretty quickly. He starts against Roman Safiullin, who has a win over him on indoor hard courts. The three seeds closest to him are Alexander Bublik, Tommy Paul, and Matteo Arnaldi, none of whom are slouches as athletes or ball-strikers. And his quarterfinal opponent could be either Ben Shelton or Arthur Fils, both title contenders.

Players of Interest: Shelton and Fils
The American won Montreal, and the Frenchman won Cincy. That makes them two of the biggest dark horses for the title, and makes their potential fourth-round match a blockbuster. Shelton leads the H2H 2-1.

First-round matches to watch
Alcaraz vs. Safiullin
Shelton vs. Tallon Griekspoor
Fils vs. Stefanos Tsitsipas
Thiago Tirante vs. Adrian Mannarino

Semifinalist: Shelton

Semifinals
Zverev d. Cobolli; Shelton d. Djokovic

Final
Shelton d. Zverev

Photos: Anita Aguilar

Iva Jovic is technically from the same country where New York City is located. But in terms of geography and energy, the wide boulevards and nearby beaches of Torrance, the SoCal city where she grew up, are about as far from the Big Apple as it’s possible to get. Even for a globe-trotting teenager like Jovic, it can take some time to adjust.

“Day, night, it’s always going,” she says of the NYC vibe. “It’s a bit of a concrete jungle out there. It’s very metallic, very trendy, there’s a lot of electricity in the air.”

All of which makes the 18-year-old want to touch grass whenever she can.

“Definitely my favorite thing about New York is Central Park,” Jovic says. “The nature, all the buildings around, it’s pretty peaceful.”

Peace—even a few minutes of it—is a prized commodity for any player trying to find success, or just survive, the year’s last and loudest Grand Slam. For as long as she lasts in the US Open draw, Jovic will be based in the humming heart of Manhattan’s Koreatown, at the Martinique New York on Broadway hotel. That’s where I talked to her on Tuesday—right after she made a long trip back from Flushing Meadows, and right before she was due for a meet-and-greet in the Martinique’s restaurant.

“I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Jovic says of the hectic life of a promising young pro. “I’m able to do what I’ve always wanted to do, what I’ve always dreamed about.”

It can be hard to remember, after seeing so much of her over the last year or so, that Jovic was still playing the juniors at the Open as recently as 2024. Her semifinal run at that event, which followed a semifinal appearance in the Wimbledon girls’ draw earlier that summer, felt like a breakthrough. After that, she rapidly rose out of the junior pack and up the WTA rankings—from 189th in 2024, to 35th in 2025, to 14th today.

“I have really good memories from here,” Jovic says. “It was my first big junior tournament, and my first big professional tournament. It’s like my birth in tennis you could say.”

If 2024 was her birth, and 2025 her rookie year, 2026 marks a new phase—the sometimes-dreaded sophomore season. Even at 18, she’s no longer the new kid with nothing to lose. According to Jovic, though, she’s also no longer the new kid traveling the world for the first time, trying to find her feet.

“I have more friends on the tour, which is good,” says Jovic, who has talked about spending time with fellow phenom Alex Eala. “When you start out, you don’t really know anyone, it’s a little bit difficult to find your way.”

“This is the first year I’ve done the whole [WTA] schedule. You definitely have to let go of your home life, and that’s something I’ve had to get used to.”

Jovic has also gotten used to her sophomore status. She’s 31-16 in 2026, has made four semifinals, reached the quarters at the Australian Open and the fourth round at Wimbledon, and comes to the Open at a career-high No. 14. In recent months, though, her roll has slowed a bit. Jovic rocketed to No. 16 in March, then stayed there until the middle of August.

That might be a problem, or at least a warning sign, for a 22-year-old or a 25-year-old, but it’s far too early to faze Jovic.

“I think I’m on a good path,” she says. “I think there are things in my game that need to get a little better. I need the consistency. I can have good matches and good weeks, but I need to replicate that a little bit better.”

When she talks about what she wants to improve, it’s clear she understands that, in today’s game, taking control of a rally as soon as possible is paramount. And that it may not come as easily to a player who, at 5’8, isn’t among the WTA’s most powerful first-strike artists.

“I’ve been working a lot on serving bigger, and just being better on the first two shots of the point,” she says. “If you want to crack into the Top 10, you need to beat the girls with the big serves, the big games. I think I just need to get better in the beginning parts of points. But it doesn’t happen overnight.”

As far as her targets for 2026, she says she wants to win her first title before the season is over, and finish in the Top 15.

Beyond that, Jovic hopes to have an affect away from the court as well. This year much of the pre-tournament buzz at the Open has been about money—specifically, the players’ demand for more of it from the Slams. With that in mind, the majors announced the formation of a Grand Slam Player Advisory Council, to “give players a formal voice in major tournament matters.” Jovic has kept up with the news, and is interested in getting more involved in the sport’s politics down the road.

“I’m still young, so I’m learning about that,” she says. “But as a younger player, I want to be able to make a positive impact, and carry those torches. I’m excited about the player council for the Grand Slams. There’s a long way to go for women’s sports in general. Our lives are flipped upside down for this sport, and we deserve to be properly paid for that. It’s something I hope I can help with in the future.”

“My rebound after losing is now one or two days, where it used to be two weeks,” Jovic says with a laugh. “So maybe I’ve just narrowed down the sorrow.”

For now, Jovic has a more modest goal: sleeping better, in particular after a loss.

“I wish I could say I’ve learned, but it’s still tough,” she says with a laugh. “My rebound after losing is now one or two days, where it used to be two weeks. So maybe I’ve just narrowed down the sorrow. It’s always going to be tough, I’m someone who is very competitive and who hates losing. I think that’s going to be something I’m going to have to work toward my entire career.”

Talking to Jovic face to face, or listening to her on TV, it can be hard to sense that deep streak of competitiveness. She seems as easygoing as you would expect from a Southern California kid. I wondered what motivated her, and whether it was the feeling of winning that you hear so many players talk about. For Jovic, it’s about more than that.

“I don’t think it’s the feeling of winning, it’s the feeling of competing,” she says. “It’s about putting yourself out there, playing in front of so many people, just feeling the nerves of being down, being up, playing well, playing bad. Also the constant work, of showing up, every day you’re trying to get better, you’re trying to improve yourself, it almost feels like a life mission. For me, competing is what makes me feel alive, win or lose. That’s why I want to play.”

That sounds like ambition fit for her current Broadway address, and the kind of competitive spirit that a New York tennis fan can get behind.

Walking home from my chat with Jovic, I passed a karaoke bar on East 38th where the screen was flashing four words: “Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.” I think we know why. If you’re looking for a deeper Dolly cut, I’d recommend the above. Wait for the twist in the tale.

Matthew Stockman/Getty Images

By Sunday at 9:00, we had reached peak Coco.

The 22-year-old had just won her second Cincinnati Open. She had straight-setted two Top 10 opponents, Jessica Pegula and Marta Kostyuk, along the way. She had played with a front-footed assurance and aggression that has often gone missing from her game. And she had showed few, if any, signs of the crippling serve and forehand issues that derailed her a summer ago.

“No matter what happens in this tournament, it’s a completely different Gauff that we’re seeing here than we saw last year,” Lindsay Davenport said in the Tennis Channel booth during Coco’s blowout semifinal win. “In building points where she’s aggressive from the back of the court, driving ground strokes, then also able to use her variety. She looks more confident on her forehand, and way more confident with her serve.”

Maybe most impressive was the fact that Coco did all of this at an event where, 12 months earlier, she had hit rock bottom. She had departed the Cincy facility in tears, having committed 16 double faults in a quarterfinal loss. Soon after, just before the US Open, she fired coach Matt Daly and hired serve guru Gavin MacMillan. At the time, it might have felt like a panicked decision. Now, after two WTA 1000 titles and a run to the Wimbledon semis under MacMillan’s tutelage, we can see that Gauff did just what she needed to do to put her career back on track.

“It’s night and day the player I am from last year to now,” she said in her Sunday presser.

Which led, naturally, to the next question from a reporter: Does she think she’s playing well enough to win an even bigger title at the US Open three weeks from now?

Instead of entertaining that idea and keeping the good vibes going, Coco chose to pump the brakes.

“I don’t think this is an indicator that I’m going to do well in New York, to be honest,” she said flatly.

With those sober words, you could feel a little of the air go out of the room. How could it not be a positive indicator when, three years ago, she followed her first title in Cincy with her first at the Open?

Gauff’s caution may not have been what we wanted to hear, but it comes from hard experience. She knows as well as anyone that every good run has an end point, and it usually comes sooner than you think.

“Nobody’s gonna be great all 10, 15 years of their career, it’s literally impossible,” she said. “There’s gonna be down months and down tournaments.”

She also knows from more recent experience that success in a Slam tune-up doesn’t necessarily lead to success at the Slam itself. This spring, when she reached the final in Rome, she seemed to have her clay game sorted. But that didn’t mean anything when she ran into—and lost to—a hot-hitting Anastasia Potapova in the third round at the French Open.

Maybe most important, Gauff could feel that there were reasons not to go overboard about her performance, however much she was praised for it.

In her last two matches, against Pegula and Sara Bejlek, she faced weary opponents who were coming off three-set wins the previous day. (Cincy may want to revisit a schedule that has players going from a match every two days to suddenly playing three straight days at the tournament’s end.) At times, especially when she was trying to close out sets, Gauff did revert to the tentative, defensive, back-foot forehand swing that her rivals have traditionally exploited.

“There’s definitely some shots where I decelerated a little bit,” she conceded.

For all of her improvement over the past 12 months, Gauff knows that few flaws in tennis are permanently solved. At the Open, all it would take is a steady, pesky, inspired opponent to break her serve, make her tight, and send her into deceleration mode again. What she was happiest about in Cincy, she said, was the way she fought, and thought, her way through those tight moments when they came. That’s something she can remember and lean on in New York.

Still, for all of those caveats, Coco really was in peak form in Cincinnati. Which is good for fans of the sport, whether or not she wins the Open. She threw down 122-m.p.h. first serves, calmly hit her second serves with pace and depth, took forehands at head height and powered them with flat pace—and then did all of the other things she’s so good at. That’s the real Coco, the fun-to-watch Coco, the Coco who’s showing off all of her gifts. Let’s see if she can stand up again in New York.

“Who knows what you might do,” my classmate insisted, loudly, from the other side of the room. “You might end up writing for a tennis magazine!”

I tried my best to hear her over the scratchy Sticky Fingers that was spinning on the turntable, and the snarky chatter that bubbled up from half a dozen of our fellow seniors, who were slouched around us. It was the ominous spring of 1991, and we were doing what college seniors did in those recession-darkened days: Splitting a case of beer, pontificating about the state of the world, pre-gaming for a party we’d probably never make it to, and generally avoiding the only topic that mattered: What the hell were we going to do when we graduated?

The girl across the room had dared to broach that taboo topic, probably because her idea made sense. I played tennis and liked to write. It’s just that the idea of combining the two hadn’t really crossed my mind.

I loved sportswriting, and read Frank DeFord and Curry Kirkpatrick in SI religiously, whether they were covering tennis or anything else. But I was a music obsessive from birth. Or from the day I turned 10, anyway. That’s when my dad gave me the original, cherry-covered Rolling Stone Rock Record Guide. I was hooked by the acerbic reviews and the one-through-five-star rating system—any album with five stars next to it was transformed into a mini Holy Grail that I needed to go to the mall and use up my allowance to buy ASAP. From then on, the OG rock critics of that era—Robert Christgau, Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh—were my writing gods.

I read the RS record guide until the red cover fell off. I inhaled the music section of the Village Voice every week at the local public library. In college, I spent a dangerous amount of my studying time in the far reaches of the school’s library, catching up on a couple decades of Rolling Stone back issues. I tried to pretend that I was deep into my Faulkner or Foucault, but none of my classmates seemed surprised when I got an internship at the magazine. “Rolling Stone is what you got your degree in, right?” a friend joked.

But around the same time, in the spring of ’91, another piece of magazine writing caught my eye. Again it was my dad who clued me in. “You have to read Peter Bodo’s article about seeing Borg in Monte Carlo,” he told me.

If the rock critics of the day were my writing gods, Bjorn Borg was my tennis god—at least for the all-too-brief, eight-year period that he walked the courts of the world. Now, at 34, he had fallen from the clouds long enough to make a reputation-ruining comeback attempt at his hometown tournament. He showed up 10 years after his initial retirement wielding the same wood racquet and sporting the same shoes, headband, and shoulder-length hair that he had in his glory years. At his side was his unlikely new guru, Tia Honsai—real name, Ron Thatcher—a karate expert from Wales.

The South of France hadn’t played host to a global sporting sensation like this since Lenglen vs. Wills 60 years earlier. Tennis Magazine sent Pete to cover it, and his review peaked with an unforgettable scene. As he stood in a hallway at the Monte Carlo Country Club trying to get his bearings, he suddenly spotted Borg, surrounded by paparazzi and publicity people, shambling in his direction. When Borg saw Pete, a figure from his happier past, he let out a sardonic laugh as he passed by, as if to ask, “Can you believe this?”

Here was a tennis writer who made me want to do what he did. I added the magazine to the list of publications I would send samples and résumés when I got to New York. And, for the next six years, as I wrote for small music journals and worked as a proofreader and bookstore clerk, I kept sending pitches to Tennis—and kept getting crickets in response.

The door finally cracked open, as it tends to do, in a completely unforeseen and roundabout way. A woman I worked with at a bookstore knew somebody who knew somebody who told her that Tennis was under new management. I sent another résumé and was hired for the now-extinct job of copyeditor. A week or so later, when Bodo came by the office, the editor-in-chief introduced me as a “good…or pretty good, writer.”

After six years of scuffling, I couldn’t complain. I had my dream job.

I was lucky enough to keep it for the next 28 years, until that luck ran out this spring when tennis.com, which was the modern extension of Tennis Magazine, was automated and stopped publishing articles, including mine and Pete’s.

Which is why I’m here. During those 28 years, I never really got tired of writing about tennis. It’s a year-round subject with a constant supply of matches and personalities to analyze and appreciate. Despite riding a wave of popularity at the moment, it still isn’t analyzed or appreciated nearly as much as its fellow major sports, or as much as it should.

What will my own analysis look like at this site? I’m sure it will be a work in progress. I chose the name First Ball In because I imagined doing a regular recap of the previous day’s matches, and a preview of the coming day’s. But that’s just a tiny sliver of what’s happening in the universe of tennis at any given time, and what can be said about it. There’s the pro game, Challengers, college, league play, juniors. There’s 150 years of the sport’s history to unearth. There are opinion columns and match reactions to conjure. There might even be instructional tips to give.

I’ll take it the way every athlete who has ever been interviews does: One post at a time. The beauty of Substack, which we never could have conceived of back in that dorm room in the ominous spring of ’91, is that there are no limits to what you can write: Tennis and whatever else—music, movies, books, politics, the friggin’ Orange Man—that comes to mind. Sounds kinda like a dream.

More to come soon…