2025 US Open Men’s Singles: Recap

Carlos Alcaraz defeated defending champion Jannik Sinner in four sets at the 2025 US Open Men’s Singles championship game to claim his second US Open Singles title and sixth major title. This continues a great year for Alcaraz in which he won two majors in 2025 (French Open and US Open), and  reclaimed the ATP world number one ranking position from Jannik Sinner. Despite the loss, Sinner remains one of the top players in the world, having achieved a very rare four major finals appearances in a single year, winning two (Australian Open and Wimbledon). His only losses in finals came against Alcaraz, demonstrating the dominance that both players have over the current tour. 

The tournament was full of surprises and upsets. One of the main upsets was Canadian player Felix Auger-Aliassime defeating the German Alexander Zverev. Zverev was the third ranked player in the world and Auger-Aliassime was the 25th. Up to this point, Zverev was seen as one of the favorites in the tournament, having reached the final in 2020, but Auger-Aliassime defeated him in the third round. Felix Auger-Aliassime would later prove to be one of the biggest surprises of the tournament,reaching the semi-finals before losing to Jannik Sinner. This was the first time he reached a major semi-final in his career and was rewarded with a new ranking of world number thirteen on the ATP tour after his great tournament. Another major upset was unranked Polish player Kamil Majchrzak defeating world number 9, Karen Khachanov, in the second round. This marked a major disappointment for Khachanov as he had previously reached the semi-finals in 2022 and much more was expected from him. 

Much like surprises and upsets, many highly ranked players had disappointments in the tournament. A perfect example of this was British player Jack Draper. Draper was ranked world number five going into the tournament, having had his breakthrough at the same tournament last year in 2024 when he reached the semi-finals. Sadly, Draper was forced to withdraw from his second round match against Belgian player Zizou Bergs due to an arm injury. This was a disappointing year for Draper as he never made it past the 4th round at a major tournament in 2025. Despite this, Draper is still only 23 years old and a bounce back year in 2026 is expected. Another disappointment was American player Ben Shelton who was forced to retire in the third round against French player Adrian Mannarino. Shelton was ranked world number six going into the tournament and many believed this could have finally been his shot at his first major, especially playing on home soil. Despite this, Shelton retired after just three hours of play in his third round match due to a shoulder injury.

The 2025 US Open Men’s Singles tournament solidified the dominance of the two best players in the world, Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Despite the impressive array of talent on the current ATP Tour, no one comes close to their status. In this tournament, and throughout the whole year, their dominance was proved again and again.