Sizing Up the 2023 US Open Women’s Seeds
2023 has so far been seen a carousel of Grand Slam winners on the WTA. Aryna Sabalenka, Iga Swiatek, and Marketa Vondrousova have each taken one Major title – maiden titles in the case of Sabalenka and Vondrousova. It will come down to the US Open to determine whether one of these players will step up as the more dominant force on the women’s tour or whether the streak of non-repeat slam winners will continue. Let’s dive into the current overall and skill ratings of the US Open seeds to see who are the best prospects for a title run in New York.
The top of the women’s ratings shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone (Figure 1, top right). With a win-loss record of 53 and 9 this year so far, including a title win at Roland Garros, Iga Swiatek remains the strongest overall competitor on the WTA. With a rating just under 2400, Swiatek enters the last Major of the year 100 points ahead of the next most highly rated player, Aryna Sabalenka. As the top two seeds, this makes the situation of Swiatek and Sabalenka a near direct parallel of Djokovic and Alcaraz on the men’s side.
The three next most highly rated players of the moment are among the most accomplished in 2023: Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff, and Elena Rybakina. Along with Swiatek and Sabalenka, these are the only players who will start the US Open with a rating above 2250. The two Americans of the group – Pegula and Gauff – should have both the crowd and confidence on their side, each having big results in the hard court race to Queens. Pegula is coming off a win at the Roger’s Cup, where she defeated Swiatek and Gauff in back-to-back matches. While Gauff, should still be riding high from titles in Washington and Cincinnati, where she also took out the World No. 1. Hard courts are less of Rybakina’s forte and her recent string of losses to weaker opponents suggests the 5th ranked spot in our leaderboard may be optimistic.
Figure 1. Current ratings (top right), serve ratings (bottom left) and return ratings (bottom right) of the US Open women’s seeds. Colors indicate each player’s quarter of the draw.
There are usually always some discrepancies between player ratings and official rankings, owing to the peculiarities of the ranking system. While the US Open women’s seedings generally track the current ratings (Figure 1, top row), there are some disagreements worth noting. Ons Jabeur is the 5th seed this year but the 9th overall in the current ratings, having a disappointing start of the season and just two match wins since an inexplicable loss in the Wimbledon finals. Eighth seed Maria Sakkari also looks less impressive in our current ratings, taking spot 13. Caroline Garcia – who has already had 19 losses so far this year – is perhaps the player where the ratings are in most disagreement with seedings; Garcia takes the 7th seed but barely making the top 30 in current ratings.
Considering the serve and return skill ratings of the seeds (Figure 1, bottom row) no one skill is strongly aligns with the overall rating. This suggests that there are multiple strategies for winning on women’s tour and there is no single skill that is a necessary weapon. When we look at the skill mix for the top 4, we find Swiatek and Sabalenka as the most similar, each being strongest on the return and similar in strength on serve. Jessica Pegula on the other hand has the most balance on serve and return, with both ratings more than 100 points below Swiatek and Sabalenka. Coco Gauff is the other extreme of all of these skill styles having stepped up her serving game in recent weeks and landing the highest serve rating of the main draw.
What about the ‘luck of the draw’? Looking at the distribution of the 12 most highly rated players, Jessica Pegula’s Quarter 3 has 4 of the strongest players – the most of any of the quarters. In addition to Pegula, these include Wimbledon winner Marketa Vondrousova, Cincy semifinalist Liudmila Samsonova and fellow American Madison Keys. The lightweight of the quarters is Sabalenka’s Quarter 4 where Jabeur is the only other competitor of the 12 most highly rated. With the uncertainties around Jabeur’s form, chance looks to have opened up the biggest opportunity for Sabalenka.
With Gauff’s momentum and home court advantage, local fans are likely going to pick her for a big result in the next two weeks. Living up to those expectations will take some mountains to climb as Gauff landed one of the trickier draws of the top seeds. Not only could Gauff have to get past Petra Kvitova or Jelena Ostapenko to survive the quarters, her most probably quarterfinal opponent is Iga Swiatek. Swiatek will no doubt be looking for revenge for her Cincy loss, while Gauff will be looking to prove herself with a repeat defeat over the reigning No. 1. With the drama that would surround another Swiatek-Gauff meeting, let’s hope, for entertainment’s sake, that this year’s US Open makes it happen.