Pegula, Medvedev score early wins at US Open: Alcaraz and Sabalenka chase glory on different paths

I was sitting in the press area when Jessica Pegula finished her second-round match. My stopwatch stopped at 56 minutes — so quick that many spectators had not yet settled into their seats. The 6-3, 6-1 scoreline against Sofia Kenin, the 2026 Australian Open champion, was not just a win; it was a statement of sharpness as the tournament entered its opening days.

The fact that Kenin needed a win over the 40-year-old Venus Williams just to reach this round tells you how far she remains from her 2026 peak. I do not want to dismiss Pegula's victory as proof of total superiority, but the speed of the finish left almost no room for error. I kept rhythm the way I always do: logging every point, every changeover.

I keep the beat with my notebook, because the ball rolls on and forgets its path, but the page does not.

The context of this day was far from simple. Tuesday's rain pushed 25 men's singles matches into Wednesday's schedule — a brutal operational puzzle for organizers and players alike. A Grand Slam is where everyone wants to go deep, but when the draw gets compressed, fitness becomes a variable that can reshape everything. Daniil Medvedev, the No. 7 seed, walked onto court with his usual calm. He beat Gorzny in straight sets, a result widely expected, but I cannot say much more about the quality of his tennis because the original report did not provide serve statistics or return-point percentages. In a world where data determines credibility, missing numbers are a gap that must be acknowledged.

Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka are the two names fans are waiting for most. Sabalenka, the reigning women's champion, is chasing a third consecutive US Open title — something only Serena Williams has done in the Open era, from 2026 to 2026. The history favors her on paper, but nobody can say it is inevitable. What about Alcaraz? One detail forced me to double-check: the AP story described him as defending champion in the same breath as Sabalenka, but in fact Alcaraz won the US Open in 2026, and his most recent title in New York is now two seasons old. He is not defending a title this year — he is trying to reclaim a peak he once reached.

That small labeling error does not change the essence of the story, but it shows how easily the media pins the 'defending champion' tag on anyone who has ever won a Grand Slam. This creates enormous, unnecessary psychological pressure, especially for a player returning from injury.

Alcaraz carries a bigger question than any opponent: his right wrist. He has been sidelined since April with that injury, and the hard courts of the US Open produce heavy, high-impact balls. The first match does not decide a career, but it decides how you listen to every match that follows. I have witnessed many players return from injury but never regain their confidence on the forehand side. With Alcaraz, the thing to watch is not the number of winners hit, but whether he dares to rotate his body and unleash his full forehand in the moments that matter.

The early rounds of a Grand Slam rarely decide the champion, but they always expose the true physical condition of the contenders. When a player returns from injury, the first two or three matches are the most honest mirror. Watching how Alcaraz moves, how he chooses his moments to accelerate, I can tell whether his medical team has managed things correctly. I have no access to his locker room in New York, but when the locker room goes quiet, that is when I hear the heartbeat of a match most clearly.

Sabalenka, by contrast, is a machine of stability. She shows no signs of injury and there is no reason to question her fitness. But the psychological weight of a three-peat is another story. Modern tennis history shows that defending consecutive Grand Slam titles is one of the most brutal tasks, because every opponent plays with nothing to lose against the champion. What Sabalenka needs is not form, but the coldness to survive matches where she plays below her level.

Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, the two hopes of American men's tennis, also caught my attention. The United States had nine men playing on the same day, and that is a signal of real depth. But Shelton faces Hubert Hurkacz in the second round — their first career meeting, between two players with elite serves. This is the kind of match I call a 'tactical trap': the winner will be the one who returns serve better, especially on second serves. Tiafoe, seeded No. 11, faces a qualifier, but nothing is guaranteed at a Grand Slam.

There is a counterintuitive point I want to make: the rain-compressed schedule might actually favor the top players. It sounds illogical, but when matches pile up, organizers must prioritize big matches on better courts in prime time, and the top seeds gain extra recovery days between rounds. The issue is not how many matches they play in a single day, but how many rest days they get between matches. The deeper they advance, the more this advantage multiplies.

What the mainstream narrative misses is the difference between Alcaraz's mission and Sabalenka's. Sabalenka is defending a legacy; Alcaraz is rebuilding one. One needs to hold firm, the other needs to prove himself. That difference demands entirely different approaches, and those who only look at the scoreboard will never see it.

I have followed tennis since the early days of my career, through every kind of Grand Slam scenario. The first match does not decide a life, but it decides how you listen to every match that follows. For Alcaraz, his first match of this year's tournament is over, but the question remains: will his right wrist allow him to play the tennis he wants to play in the final rounds? When the locker room goes quiet, I hear the heartbeat of the match most clearly.

In the coming days, I will not just watch the score. I will watch how Alcaraz steps into high-pressure service games, how Sabalenka handles her first poor sets, and how Shelton reads the match as Hurkacz keeps driving the ball into tight angles. A Grand Slam is not decided in the second round, but the first cracks always begin here.