After Keys-Vondrousova and Alcaraz-Zverev take to Arthur Ashe Stadium, the first five rounds of the 2023 US Open will be over. This tournament has had its ups and its downs, created superstars and supervillains, and established a brand new WTA #1. But some matches stand out among the 244 played so far. My new Excitement Index metric ranks every match by how high the stakes of each point were and how well the players sustained the intensity. From the first week, four matches stick out as the most memorable.
Women’s First Round: Elise Mertens def Mirjam Bjorklund 3-6 6-3 7-6(3), 3h14m
You might not expect a first-round match between a seeded multiple-time Grand Slam doubles champion and a little-known Swedish qualifier to be one of the best matches of the tournament, but this match was incredible. Every game of a six-game stretch in the middle of the third set went to deuce. There were 10 breaks of serve on 31 break points. Total points went to Bjorklund, 123-122.
This match also shows off the usefulness of my email system. I was at the US Open that day with some friends, and the last match around which we planned our day was Chris Eubanks’s match on the Grandstand. After his four-set victory, we went to see Tommy Paul finish off his match, but he was done very quickly. So, I checked my email system and noticed that this match was classified as a War. We went to Court 6 and watched some of the later stages. Each point was a battle, and there were no easy games. With the highest Total Excitement of any three-set match in this tournament, Mertens-Bjorklund was an incredible match.
Men’s First Round: Zhizhen Zhang def J.J. Wolf 7-5 7-5 6-7(5) 4-6 6-3, 4h29m
Zhang-Wolf was the second-longest match of the first four rounds by time, the third-longest by number of points, and the only match so far in this tournament with a Total Excitement over 100. The match started slowly – the returners won only one point in the first six games. But the seventh and eighth games were each breaks to 30, and from there, the match lost its mind. Zhang finished off the first set on a ten-minute, six-deuce slugfest. There were seven games with multiple deuces. There was an incredibly tight tiebreaker. There was a comeback from two sets to love down. This match would best be described as a meat grinder. Zhang, the 26-year-old Shanghai native, followed this match up with a five-set victory over Casper Ruud before dropping a brutal match to Rinky Hijikata. Maybe he is doing something right in the conditioning department.
Men’s First Round: Thomas Martin Etcheverry def Otto Virtanen 6-3 6-7(3) 1-6 6-4 7-6(5), 4h25m
When I went to qualifying this year, I watched Otto Virtanen’s victory over Michael Zheng. I came away very impressed by the Finn and was not surprised to see that he had qualified for the main draw. Etcheverry, seeded 30, has not had the best summer, but the form that saw him reach the quarterfinals of this year’s French Open is not too distant. Between the two of them, however, the drop in level that caused the less competitive third set is also not surprising. Other than that one set, this match was incredibly competitive. There were a huge number of very tight games, a couple marathon games, and two tiebreakers. For four of the five sets, the Finn and the Argentine played each other incredibly tight, earning a high Total Excitement.
Women’s Third Round: Sorana Cirstea def Elena Rybakina 6-3 6-7(6) 6-4, 2h48m Elena Rybakina came into this match in a little bit of a tough spot. After her incredible run of form in the first half of the year, she has battled through some illness, injuries, and some brutal scheduling. Her circumstances at the US Open were also unfortunate. She played an early match on Monday, and her second-round opponent withdrew. Not playing a match from early on Monday to late on Friday night makes it very difficult to maintain a rhythm. Rybakina definitely played worse in this match than she did in her first-round demolition of Marta Kostyuk, but that is not to take away from the resurgence of Sorana Cirstea. She raised her level through this entire tournament, and she was just a little bit better at the end of the match. There were really no easy games, and it got even tighter as the match went on. This match ranked seventh in Total Excitement among main draw women’s matches, and the level was very high throughout.
Conclusion
It is not a coincidence that most of the best matches came from the first round. Over the entire tournament, there are 254 matches played. 128 of them, just over half, come in the first two days. So, if you know where to look, there is no shortage of incredible tennis, even before the stakes get really high at the sharp end of the tournament. Excitement Index pointed us in the right direction. And don't worry if you have been missing out on the emails - they will be continuing through the rest of the US Open, and we'll be back in January for the Australian Open.
These were some of the most exciting matches of the first week. Two of the matches from the fourth round and the first day of the quarterfinals were right up near the top of the most exciting matches in the tournament. The nearly five hour war of attrition between Jannik Sinner and Alex Zverev ranks sixth among men’s matches, and seventh overall, in Total Excitement for the 2023 US Open. The quarterfinal between Karolina Muchova and Sorana Cirstea, which would be Cirstea’s second match featured here, broke the US Open record for Excitement Per Point. The first week of tennis has been incredible.
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