It’s just over a week until the final tennis major of the year rolls around, as the US Open comes at us from the hard courts at The Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre in New York. Can Andy Murray build on his Wimbledon and Olympic success?
This will be the 136th edition of the tournament making it the oldest in the world.
Last year’s winner unsurprisingly was Novak Djokovic who defeated Roger Federer to lift his second men’s US Open Title. The women’s tournament gave us a surprise when in an all-Italian affair twenty sixth seed Flavia Pennetta defeated the unseeded Roberta Vinci to claim her first ever major title.
So who is the favourite to take the men's title this year? If that question had been asked a couple of months ago you would have said the Serb Djokovic would’ve been a shoe in.
He became the first man for 47 years to hold all four Grand Slam titles at the same time when he won the French Open in June, but has seen a reversal in fortunes since which has included surprise defeats to American Sam Querrey in the third round at Wimbledon, and a first round defeat to Argentine Juan Martin del Potro in his quest to win Olympic gold.
All eyes will now be on the man of the moment Andy Murray. It would cap a remarkable 12 months for the Scot – November last year he lead Great Britain to the first Davis Cup Title in 79 years. He then got to the final of both of the first two majors of the year (Australian Open in January & French Open in May), where he would lose to Novak Djokovic in both, before going on to take victory at Wimbledon, and then just last week he retained his Olympic Games Gold Medal in Rio. Murray did actually win this tournament in 2012, which at the time was his first major.
There will be 17 titles on offer over the fortnight of action with the winners of the two single tournaments taking home over £2.6 million each.
For more information please head on over to the official website here.