All eyes will be on tennis’ biggest stars in New York, when the 2018 US Open kicks off on August 27. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, and Andy Murray are surely going to take most of the focus, but there are other players whom fans and bettors should not be sleeping on. Here are three dark horse picks for the 2018 US Open.
Nishikori has yet to win a title this year after dealing with a wrist injury for a big chunk of 2017. Nevertheless, the 28-year-old Japanese star is coming into the US Open confident that he can wreak havoc and make a deep run in the tournament. He did just that in his most recent appearance in a Grand Slam event, having went as far as the quarterfinals of this year’s Wimbledon, when he reached the quarterfinals before getting eliminated in the same round by eventual champion, Novak Djokovic. Nishikori did not play at the US Open last year because of the said wrist injury, but he’s best performance in a Grand Slam so far in his career was a runner-up finish in New York back in 2014, when he lost to Marin Cilic in the finals.
Anderson is no joke on the hard court this year. He is 17-6 in hard-court matches in 2018 as of this writing. In the recent Rogers Cup in Toronto, Anderson went all the way into the semifinals, but lost to Stefanos Tsiptsipas in that round. The hard-serving South African, however, bounced back by beating Jeremy Chardy in the second round of the Cincinnati Open to show just how ready Anderson is for the US Open. Earlier this year, Anderson topped the New York Open (hard court), beating Kei Nishikori in the semifinals and Sam Querrey in the title game.
After back-t0-back years of failure to get out of the first round at the US Open, Querrey made quite a surprising run last year with a quarterfinals appearance in the tournament. Querrey is a bit shaky on the hard court his year, as he is only 8-9 in matches on the said surface this year as of this writing, but he’s made at least two quarterfinal appearances in hard-court events this 2018. He was a finalist at the New York Open last February. He also made it to the quarters of Indiana Wells Masters.
