US Open 2026 PREVIEW & PREDICTIONS | Monday Match Analysis

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**Gill Gross** (0:33)
Welcome, everyone, to Monday Match Analysis. I'm Gill Gross, and it is time for a preview of the 2026 US Open. We have made it to the final major of the year. Apologies for the delay on this preview, although I will maintain my perfect record of getting these previews out before the main draw begins at majors. I don't think I've ever been late for a major. It is Saturday night as I'm recording this. So I have not left myself much time. It takes me about 6 hours at least to get these done, sometimes more, and I'm not going to bore you with the details, but it was really hard getting a chunk of 6 hours. But here I am. I'm ready to go. Obviously, I've been watching a lot of practice this week in New York. I've talked to some players. Nothing crazy to report. I guess the most memorable thing from the week was the question that I asked Roger Federer in the press conference, which, as much as it was a bucket list item for me to ask Roger a question, because I did not have that opportunity, at the end of the day, our careers really didn't overlap much in terms of me being somebody who is on site from time to time as a credentialed member of the media in whatever capacity.
I did not plan on asking a question when I sat down in that press conference. It was not the plan. I was a spectator, and about halfway through the press conference, I was getting, I don't know, frustrated is the right word, a little bored of the questions that were being asked, and it inspired me, that boredom inspired me to think of a question. I kid you not. No disrespect to my colleagues in there. I thought the first question that was asked to Roger was a good question, and I thought that yielded an interesting result. But then the rest, I was a little bit underwhelmed, and it inspired me to come up with a question, and it was the last question of the press conference. So I just barely got it in, ended up being a 25-minute press conference. I got very, very lucky that I got to ask it. And at the end of the day, it was just, here is something that is a big picture, you know, a fascination for anybody who is interested in tennis, the fading of the one-handed backhand. And I'm talking about this basically as if everybody has seen it, which might be presumptive, but it did go pretty viral.
But basically I asked Federer about the dawn of the one-handed backhand, the fact that we're seeing it less and less, in the context of the fact that if Lorenzo Musetti or anybody else doesn't make the US. Open semis this year, it will end a streak that goes back as far as time in this sport of at least one one-handed backhand making at least one semi-final in a calendar year. And Roger's answer was awesome. I'm not going to talk specifically about his answer. No need to do that. You can find it on my shorts page if you missed it. But I wasn't going to ask a question. Then I was inspired kind of midway through the press conference and just got it in. So that's the backstory there. But it was pretty cool. I did not expect it to take off like it did at all.
CPI, court pace index, I can report is one point higher than it was last year. I think that's pretty negligible to be honest. Still medium fast, but everybody's interested in that. I did receive that information today, so I will share it. I also found this pretty interesting from Nishi on X. It is underdogs at slams from 2010 to 2026 Essentially, this is if you put an equal stake in the betting market on underdogs, every single match that's played for all of the four majors. For those watching on YouTube, you can see the US Open has been far and away.