That’s it. Grand Slam tennis is done for another year, with the US Open wrapping up on Sunday evening in New York. It was a brilliant fortnight of action, producing plenty of drama on and off the court. Read on for a breakdown of everything you may have missed over the last week of tennis.
Champions corner
128 men and 128 women arrived in New York vying for the silverware, but just two lifted it above their heads this weekend. Here are your 2025 US Open champions:
- Carlos Alcaraz beat Jannik Sinner – 6-2, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4
- Aryna Sabalenka beat Amanda Anisimova – 6-3, 7-6
Alcaraz vs Sinner always feel like a coin toss lately, but this time Alcaraz was clearly the stronger and Sinner admitted afterwards that he will need to find more variety going forward and become more unpredictable. It will be so interesting to follow these two in the coming years as the level of tennis is sometimes unbelievable.
Anisimova sat down in tears after her tough loss against a solid Sabalenka and reflected afterwards: “I didn’t fight hard enough for my dreams”, the American said. She was also having issues with the bright artificial lights in the stadium, as it was closed, and said she had a hard time seeing the ball during serve tosses.
????1?? pic.twitter.com/yX2bSB2nuz
— Carlos Alcaraz (@carlosalcaraz) September 7, 2025
Have a look at this overhead shot from Carlitos:
One of the greatest baseline overheads you'll see, courtesy of Carlos Alcaraz. pic.twitter.com/JTh2A9GCOL
— US Open Tennis (@usopen) September 7, 2025
Winners and losers from the 2025 US Open
While only two players could win, plenty of others will have come away from the tournament with positives (and negatives).
ATP Tour
On the men’s side, it was an excellent tournament for Felix Auger-Aliassime, who was widely touted as a future Grand Slam champion when he burst on the scene as a teenager. He shot up to a career high of No 6 in the world in 2022, but went off the boil and seemed as though his potential wouldn’t materialize. However, the level he brought all tournament – including in his four-set loss to Sinner – was brilliant, and showed his hopes of lifting serious silverware are far from over.
Alexander Bublik also did well to make the round of 16, given the Kazakh’s lack of hard-court preparation and his tendency to be inconsistent. His recent vein of form seems to be a genuine turning point, rather than just a flash in the pan.
It was yet another disappointing outing for the chasing pack on the ATP Tour, however. Daniil Medvedev, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Casper Ruud were all out early, while Holger Rune and Alexander Zverev weren’t much better. Jack Draper and Ben Shelton can’t be blamed for getting injured, but on the whole, only Taylor Fritz and Lorenzo Musetti lived up to expectations.
WTA Tour
For the women, Amanda Anisimova and Naomi Osaka were huge winners, despite neither walking away with the title. Osaka proved she’s well and truly back in the mix contending for Grand Slams, while Anisimova showed incredible heart to bounce back from her Wimbledon double bagel – not only making another slam final, but beating Iga Swiatek en route.
It’s safe to say this event was a win for Venus Williams too, even though she walked away empty handed from the singles. The veteran – aged 45 – took a set off eventual quarter-finalist Karolina Muchova, and made a brilliant run to the doubles last eight with Leylah Fernandez.
However, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva will be rueing not being in the mix further. Both took surprising losses, with their sections of the draw looking ripe for a deep run.
The Djokovic dilemma
Novak Djokovic gets a whole section to himself, because a case can be made for the US Open being both a win and a loss for the Serbian.
Making the semi-finals of a Grand Slam as a part-time 38-year-old tennis player is an incredible achievement, and cements Djokovic’s position as the unequivocal third-best player in the world at the moment.
However, his loss to Alcaraz made something else clear: it’s now virtually impossible for him to keep up with the New Two. Bagging slam No 25 is no longer realistic. Sure, Djokovic can still make plenty of final weekends at majors, but he simply can’t go toe-to-toe with Sinner and Alcaraz.
How will this play into his future plans?
Fritz gets it backward
On a lighter note, Taylor Fritz had fans chuckling when he came out to face Djokovic in the quarter-finals with his “BOSS” headband on upside down. Some speculated that it was an intentional play, an attempt to reverse his 0-10 head-to-head against his opponent.
Turns out it wasn’t, with Fritz tweeting soon after the match, “Yo why’d nobody tell me that shit was backwards”.
Pegula says what we’re all thinking
Fellow American Jessica Pegula also spat some fire online after her loss in the semi-finals to Sabalenka. She played out of her skin against the defending champion but still fell in a tight third set. Afterwards, she posted a bemused picture of herself, Honey Deuce in hand, saying, “When you lost 4 points on serve in the 3rd but you lost the match”.
Coming up this week
Grand Slam tennis is over, but for those who lost early, they’ll be itching to get their teeth stuck into some more matches. For the ATP Tour, it’s an off week, bar some David Cup qualifiers. However, the WTA Tour gets straight into it with the Guadalajara Open (WTA 500) getting underway on Monday, as well as the SP Open (WTA 250) in Brazil.
