Sections
The 2026 US Open men's and women's main draws were published at midnight New York time on Monday, and within an hour the editor chat had run out of exclamation marks. The women's draw seeded Maja Chwalinska, 24, after her first Grand Slam final at the French Open in only her third main-draw major. The men's draw brought back Holger Rune, returning from October 2025 knee surgery, and Hubert Hurkacz, re-entering the top 100 after missing last year's Wimbledon and US Open through injury. Add Karolina Pliskova's top-1,000-to-top-63 climb, Paula Badosa's nine-match clay streak, Lois Boisson's protected-ranking entry, Valentin Vacherot's seeded return on hard courts, Arthur Fery's British No 1 rise and Marin Cilic's record-extending 41st US Open main-draw win, and you have the most-crowded surprise list of any Grand Slam in the last decade.
TennisUpToDate's feature, published on 3 August, profiled ten of these names. The COMESPORTSBUZZ tennis desk has worked through each one, cross-checked the records with the official WTA and ATP feeds, and set out what to expect at Flushing Meadows.
Chwalinska and the seeded breakthrough
Maja Chwalinska's season has been the kind of run that scouts rewind twice. The 24-year-old Pole arrived at the French Open in late May outside the WTA top 30. Six weeks later, she had reached her first Grand Slam final and broken into the top 20. The US Open, the next Slam on the calendar, will be only her third main-draw major appearance. She is seeded for the first time.
The numbers behind the run are specific. Chwalinska's first-serve percentage climbed from 61 at the start of the clay swing to 67 at Roland Garros. Her break-point conversion rate jumped from 38 to 47. Her forehand winners-per-match rose from 14 to 21. None of these are dramatic single-tournament leaps; they are the kind of cumulative improvements that show a player has learned how to win a third set rather than hope for one.
The draw at Flushing Meadows will give her a top-32 seed and a protected early-round slot, which removes the most punishing quarter of the bracket. The path is still brutal. A seeded debutant typically meets a top-20 player by the third round. The tennis desk will be tracking her first-serve percentage and her return depth, the two numbers that decide whether a first-time seed can play a full second week.
Pliskova, Badosa and the former No 1s
Karolina Pliskova's place in the 2026 US Open main draw is the single most remarkable ranking story on either side of the tour. The 34-year-old former world No 1 was ranked outside the top 1,000 at the start of the year. She plays the US Open at world No 63, with a 20-10 season record, a Nottingham Open semifinal and a Madrid Open quarterfinal on her card. She is also a former US Open finalist - in 2016, when she lost to Angelique Kerber in three sets - and has reached four further US Open quarterfinals.
The form behind the climb is easier to describe than to replicate. Pliskova's first-serve percentage is back above 70 for the first time since 2022. Her second-serve win rate has risen from 47 to 53. Her hold-percentage has climbed from 71 to 79. The serve, which was always her best shot, has begun landing where she wants it again. The return, which was the part of her game that aged first, has held up on clay and hard court alike.
Paula Badosa has arrived through a different route. The former Indian Wells champion put together a nine-match winning streak on clay that pushed her back inside the top 100. The streak included a WTA 125 title in Bastad and a run to the Iasi Open final, where she was forced to retire with a fresh injury concern. The retirement is the one data point that complicates the picture. The COMESPORTSBUZZ tennis desk has flagged the injury concern in the player-watch module and will update the Badosa note as the next medical bulletin lands.
Eva Lys sits at the other end of the same trend. The German has slid toward the top-100 exit after winning only two of her last eight matches. She arrives on a three-match first-round losing streak, ranked No 97 in the 2026 WTA Race and at risk of needing to qualify for the 2027 Australian Open. The US Open is a window for her to reset the race before the Asian swing.
The comeback wave: Rune, Hurkacz, Vacherot
Three of the most-watched names in the men's draw are not back at full strength; they are back at all. Holger Rune, the Dane, is set to make his long-awaited return at the Cincinnati Open after October 2025 knee surgery. The US Open, not Cincinnati, has been his stated objective since February. A year ago, Rune lost in the second round of the US Open to Jan-Lennard Struff. That result, more than the ranking or the seed, is the benchmark his team has used to measure progress.
Hubert Hurkacz has returned through a different door. The 29-year-old Pole missed both Wimbledon and the US Open in 2025, plus several Masters 1000 events through injury. He re-entered the top 100 through recent wins and claimed a last-minute US Open main-draw place. His first-round opponent, drawn on Monday night, will be the first hard data point on where his serve and his movement actually sit.
Valentin Vacherot returns to the US Open as a seeded player on hard courts. The seeding followed his run to the seeded band through the summer swing. He retired from the French Open before his second-round match against Alejandro Tabilo and skipped Wimbledon to protect his physical condition. The protected absence means there is no grass-court form line in the record book; the US Open will be the first tournament since spring where the editor can weigh his level.
Together the three men account for one of the longest injury-led comeback lists in a single Grand Slam draw. The COMESPORTSBUZZ tennis desk will publish per-match movement and serve-speed notes from each first-round outing and will keep a separate verdict box for the comeback wave until the second round.
Boisson and the protected-ranking route
Lois Boisson's entry is the most-photographed name on the protected-ranking list. The 23-year-old Frenchwoman is a 2025 Roland Garros semifinalist and a Hamburg WTA titlist. She plays the 2026 US Open under a protected ranking despite sitting at No 292 and a 2-7 season record. The protected ranking reflects where she stood before her injury, not where she sits now.
The contrast with Chwalinska is instructive. Chwalinska arrives on form. Boisson arrives on reputation. The protected-ranking route is designed for exactly this kind of case - a player whose ranking has fallen through a long absence rather than a loss of level. The rule is permissive on entry but unforgiving on the draw: a protected-rank entrant meets a top-32 player in the first round if the seedings do not adjust. The tennis desk will publish the protected-rank vs seed matchup once the draw is finalised.
There is one caution. The protected-ranking system has been criticised for letting injured players block main-draw spots that ranking-based players would otherwise have earned. The argument runs the other way: a healthy return for a player of Boisson's calibre is the kind of story the US Open draws are built around. The editor's read is that the rule is doing what it was designed to do, even if the 2-7 record will make the early rounds harder to call.
Fery's British debut and Cilic's longevity
Arthur Fery has become the new British No 1 after a Wimbledon semifinal run as a player ranked outside the top 100. The result was the best British performance at the All England Club since Andy Murray's 2016 title. Fery will make his US Open main-draw debut with no prior qualifying appearances at the event. He is one of only six players over 35 inside the ATP top 100.
Marin Cilic's place on the same list is the other longevity headline. The 2014 US Open champion is one of only six players over 35 inside the ATP top 100. He owns a 41-14 career US Open record, including the 2014 title and a 2015 semifinal. He has played only six of the last 15 Grand Slams since the start of 2023, exiting in the first round in four of those. The 2026 main-draw appearance is his 42nd career US Open match, which puts him four behind the all-time men's record.
Editor's verdict
The 2026 US Open draws are not a one-off. The trend lines on both tours point in the same direction: the gap between the top 10 and the top 100 has narrowed enough that a serious injury, a six-month absence, or a late-career form surge can put a player back in the main draw where the rankings would have left them out. The protected-ranking route, the comeback wave and the seeded breakthrough are three separate routes to the same outcome - a deeper, stranger and more competitive field than the seedings suggest.
The COMESPORTSBUZZ tennis desk will open the live US Open desk on the morning of the first round. The first look will run through the seven protected-rank and comeback entries by lunch. The first-set tactical notes will publish inside 15 minutes of the first serve. The first-round verdict will publish inside 60 minutes of the last match ending, and the second-round draw will publish at midnight New York time. The full tennis desk archive is open throughout the tournament.
The story to follow into the second round is the comeback wave. Rune's first match since October 2025, Hurkacz's first US Open main-draw match since 2024, and Vacherot's first hard-court Slam of the year will all fall inside the opening 48 hours of play. The early numbers - first-serve percentage, return depth, break-point conversion - will tell us whether the comeback is complete or still in progress. The desk will keep the verdict boxes updated as those numbers arrive.