This US Open Will Be Won in the Locker Room First

Every year the US Open does something no other Slam does: it strips players naked. Wimbledon wraps you in tradition. Paris gives you time. Melbourne gives you sunshine and goodwill. New York gives you noise, heat, night sessions that finish at 2 a.m., and twenty thousand people who did not come to watch politely. Flushing Meadows doesn't test your tennis first. It tests your nervous system.

In my book Locker Room Power, I wrote that many matches are won before a player steps on court — that alongside the tangible things, desire, weapons, self-belief, there is an aura that saps an opponent's conviction before a ball is struck. The myth on top of the reality. Andre Agassi described the moment he felt it: the way players silently anoint the alpha dog in their midst, the one who's feeling it, the one likeliest to win — how they watch him in the locker room, step aside a little quicker when he walks by.

Which brings us to the most psychologically interesting Slam in a decade. Because the anointed one isn't here.

The hole in the men's draw

Jannik Sinner is out with a knee injury, and let's not pretend that's a footnote. The man is 44–3 this season and retained Wimbledon in July. For two years he and Alcaraz have held the tour's Locker Room Power almost single-handedly — the players the others watched, the standard everyone else measured against.

Here's what most previews miss: a missing favourite is not a gift. It's a burden transfer. Every player who quietly used Sinner and Alcaraz as the built-in excuse — nobody beats them right now anyway — just lost their alibis. Now the tournament is winnable, and winnable is heavier than impossible. In thirty-five years on tour I learned that the fear of success outstrips the fear of failure, because success drags you into unknown territory. Watch who carries that weight well in week one. The players talking about the open draw are feeling it. The players refusing to are managing it.

Somewhere in that locker room over the next fortnight, the anointing will quietly happen again — and half the tournament is about who receives it.

Zverev: the man who broke his own ceiling

Alexander Zverev arrives as the top seed, and he arrives as something more important: a man who no longer has to answer the question. For years he was the best player never to win a major — a title nobody wants, renewed annually in press rooms on three continents. Then he won Roland Garros in June, and the architecture of doubt came down, although we saw traces again in the Wimbledon final.

Above: Alexander Zverev. Photo credit: si.robi, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

This is the difference between self-belief and confidence. Confidence fluctuates with results; belief is the foundation underneath, and it either holds or it doesn't. When champions say they can't believe they've won, what they're really saying is they can't believe it finally happened — the belief itself was settled years earlier. Zverev's problem was never belief in his tennis. It was that every tight moment in a final arrived carrying seven years of evidence for the prosecution. Paris deleted the file. Tim Henman once told me his Locker Room Power among the elite was established the day he saved match points against Kafelnikov on Centre Court; Zverev's was established on Chatrier in June, and the locker room knows it. With Alex de Minaur his projected quarterfinal opponent, if he plays the opponent across the net instead of the ghost of his old reputation, he is the man to beat.

Alcaraz: class against rust

Carlos Alcaraz is the defending champion, seeded second, and he hasn't played a competitive match since April because of a right wrist injury. Four months out, straight into the loudest tournament on earth, defending a title.

Run him through the same split. His confidence has to be low — confidence is built from recent evidence, and he has none. His belief will be untouched, because nothing about the wrist changes what he knows he can do. The first three rounds will show us which one is steering. An Alcaraz who accepts three ugly rounds — who questions his timing but never his self-belief — can absolutely win this; his ceiling remains the highest in the sport. An Alcaraz who panics at the first scratchy service game and starts chasing his April self will be gone by the second week.

Above: Carlos Alcaraz. Photo credit:  © Rolex / Jon Buckle.

And Florida may have something to say about it. His projected quarterfinal is Ben Shelton — Gainesville-raised, a Gator through and through, who won the Masters title in Montreal this month and treats Arthur Ashe like his personal amphitheatre. A rusty champion against a left-handed home favourite serving 140 in front of a night-session crowd is the most dangerous appointment in Alcaraz's fortnight, and the loudest.

Djokovic and the arithmetic of 25

Novak Djokovic sits on 24 majors, level with Margaret Court, seeded fourth, with Daniil Medvedev in his projected quarter and Alcaraz waiting in the semis. Nobody in the history of the sport has managed pressure better. But 25 is a different animal, because it isn't about beating an opponent; it's about beating a number and Father Time. A number and his stamina are opponents his aura cannot intimidate.

There's a trap I've watched swallow brilliant careers: winning shifting from what you do to who you are. Djokovic has spent two decades on the right side of that line. The question in New York isn't whether his tennis is good enough — it's whether the chase for 25 has become identity rather than target, because the moment it does, every 5–4 game weighs double. That, and whether two weeks of best-of-five in New York heat leaves enough in the tank for the days when the tennis isn't quite there. His ability to win when not playing well is legendary, but he always had his legs!

Keep an eye on Arthur Fils too. He won his first Masters title in Cincinnati on Sunday, beating Frances Tiafoe in the final, and rides in at a career-high ranking with nothing to defend. In the formula I use — desire plus belief plus weapons plus success equals Locker Room Power — Fils just added the missing ingredient. Success is the evidence that makes the rest of it frightening. Players in that window, good enough to win and too new to be scared, are exactly who you don't want in your section.

Sabalenka and the loneliest chase in tennis

Aryna Sabalenka, the world No. 1, two-time defending champion, and these days a Miami resident who does her hard-court homework in our humidity, is going for three straight, territory only Serena Williams (2012–14) has touched in the modern era. A three-peat is the loneliest chase in sport because there is no upside left, only protection. Win, and you did what you were supposed to do. Lose, and it's a story.

Above: Aryna Sabalenka. Photo credit: Mauricio Paiz.

This is where the play-to-gain principle earns its keep. Nadal, after winning the 2008 Wimbledon final, was asked about the disappointment of losing the fourth set after two match points drifted away, and answered: disappointment? Are you crazy? The opportunity was still enormous — I only had one set to win. He counted what was there to gain; most players in that seat count what's slipping away.

Sabalenka has already lost many a Slam final — to Elena Rybakina in Melbourne this year, the latest. However, she has overcome her nerves often as well, so she walks that tightrope often. How she frames the first properly tight match of this fortnight will decide her tournament. Defending champions who play to protect grip the racquet tighter with every round. Champions who walk out with a third title to gain are much more difficult to beat.

Meanwhile, the challengers arrive with fresh evidence of their own. Rybakina won the Australian Open. Mirra Andreeva won Roland Garros at 19. Linda Noskova took Wimbledon. Two breakthrough champions in one season — the old order didn't crack; it shattered. Each of them just had her Kafelnikov moment: the day the locker room started looking at her differently. Now comes the harder part — getting used to being the watched instead of the watcher. Noskova is projected into Sabalenka's half along with Jessica Pegula. Rybakina could meet Iga Swiatek — fresh off the title in Toronto, and a woman who knows precisely how heavy a No. 1 ranking gets — as early as the quarterfinals. That's a final-quality match played five days early. Florida-raised Amanda Anisimova, seeded tenth, is the kind of clean ball-striker nobody in either half wants to see across the net on a fast court.

Gauff: the formula, assembled

And then there's our own Coco Gauff. The pride of Delray Beach won Cincinnati without dropping a set — twelve straight — beating Pegula in the final, on the surface that matters, in the country that roars for her. She has already won this title, so New York holds no mystery for her, only memory. Desire, weapons, belief, and now fresh success: the full formula, assembled and humming, in a 22-year-old who grew up on Florida hard courts learning to love exactly this kind of heat. I admire how she has gone through the work of remodelling her serve and forehand, sticking with her team through a tough year. This is someone with a long-term vision and my clear favourite to win the title — an example of patience and faith in a process.

Above: Coco Gauff. Photo credit: New Balance.

The picks

On the men's side: Zverev. Not because the draw opened, but because he altered his own history in Paris, and a man who has silenced his loudest inner critic on the biggest stage doesn't hand the microphone back. The threat: Alcaraz, if his wrist and his patience both hold for a fortnight, provided he survives the Shelton night shift.

On the women's side: Gauff. Momentum, surface, crowd, and a champion's memory of the whole road. The obstacle is Sabalenka, and that collision may be the match of the tournament — the protector against the player with everything to gain. Either way, the trophy has a decent chance of wintering in South Florida.

My predictions in order are: Men — Zverev; Alcaraz; Fils/Djokovic equal third.

Women — Gauff; Sabalenka; Rybakina/Swiatek.

Hold the deeper point, because it outlasts the fortnight: every one of these players can hit the ball. At this level, the tennis tools are a given. What separates the last eight from the last two is who walks on court already owning the space and who spends three sets asking permission to be there.

Aura is built long before it's felt: practice, intent, commitment, stacked daily until opponents start doing your work for you.

The US Open just says it louder.

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David Sammel is a performance coach based in Palm Beach and the author of the bestseller Locker Room Power. He has coached on the professional tour for 35 years.

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