Alcaraz and Badosa will make their US Open debut together in an exciting evening session

The initial stage of US Open, but we already know the schedules for the first two days of the tournament. The organization has made public the order of play for all matches in the first round, both Monday and Tuesday.

Iga Swiatek will open this edition against the Swedish Peterson on Monday at 6:00 pm (Spanish peninsular time), while Novak Djokovic will play the last match of the day (around 03h) against Alexandre Muller.

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For Tuesday there will be the debut of Carlos Alcaraz, who will also make us overnight. Like Djokovic, the Murcian will close the day on the Arthur Ashe court against the German Dominik Koepfer, around 3 in the morning.

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It is only after the game that will face, at 01:00, Paula Badosa with Venus Williams, another one of the highlights of the second day of the tournament.

Carlos Alcaraz and Dominik Koepfer will meet for the first time. After a difficult start to the season in which he only played Challengers, the German chained two great results this summer, the quarterfinals in Atlanta and the semifinals in Los Cabos.

If his debut is to be surpassed, the Murcian will be measured, on Thursday, with the winner of the match between South African Lloyd Harris, a good server who this year only stood out in the semifinals in Mallorca, and Guido Pella, a clay court specialist, who will play in his first hard court tournament in New York since March. Neither of them had faced the world number 1 before.

Daniel Evans (26) and Botic van de Zandschulp appear likely rivals in the third round (Saturday). Neither of them has beaten Alcaraz, who has a 2-0 record in both, although the Briton won the Washington tournament more than a month ago.

In any case, it seems that the first week should not eliminate the current champion of the tournament, which will be seen how From the round of 16, significant threats begin to appear their way.

The first of them should be Cameron Norrie, a possible opponent in the round of 16. Despite the poor moment of form (he has not won a match since the first round of Wimbledon at the end of June), the Briton is a player who often makes his life difficult.

Undoubtedly, the main course will come in the quarterfinals, where Alcaraz will have to repeat his rivalry from last year against Jannik Sinner. The Italian is one of the players who gives the Murcian the most war, as it became clear this March in the Miami semifinals, when he came back to win and reach the grand final (6-7, 6-4, 6-2). ).

Their head-to-head is 3-3, but the Spanish victories are painful.. The first of these was at Paris Bercy 2021 by a tight 7-6, 7-5, and the last at Indian Wells 2023 by 7-6, 6-3. We left last year’s duel in New York for last, where Alcaraz pulled off an epic victory (6-3, 6-7, 6-7, 7-5, 6-3) in a match won by Sinner in the fourth set and that he let get away for a handful of decisive points that he didn’t know how to define.

The last big obstacle for Alcaraz before the final will come in the semifinals, where he will have to meet Daniil Medvedev. It is true that the Russian clearly lost to the Spaniard in the two games they played this year (6-3, 6-2 in the Indian Wells final and 6-3, 6-3, 6-3 in the Wimbledon semifinals. ), but we do not must forget that the US Open is his favorite tournament and where he usually shows his best level, as he showed in 2019 by putting Rafa Nadal against the ropes (7-5, 6-3, 5- 7, 4-6, 6-4) or in 2021, when he outlasted favorite Novak Djokovic (6-4, 6-4, 6-4) in a final to remember.

Djokovic will surely be waiting for the last one everyone dreams ofa rivalry that will mean the fourth battle in a row, after Roland Garros, Wimbledon and Cincinnati, of a war that is on its way to becoming one of the most outstanding rivalries of recent times.