US Open draw: Osaka to face Ostapenko, Zheng to play Anisimova in Round 1

The 2024 US Open draw is out, and features a slew of first-round blockbusters between some of the Hologic WTA Tour's biggest names.

Four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, the winner in 2018 and 2020, will take on No.10 seed Jelena Ostapenko in her first appearance at Flushing Meadows since becoming a mother. The pair have only played once, in the first round of Roland Garros 2016, the year before Ostapenko won her first major title there. Osaka won that match 6-4, 7-5.

Freshly-crowned Olympic gold medallist Zheng Qinwen, the No.7 seed, will face wild card Amanda Anisimova for the first time. Anisimova has also been on the comeback trail in 2024 after taking a mental health break in 2023, and two weeks ago surged back into the Top 50 after reaching her first WTA 1000 final in Toronto.

No.5 seed Jasmine Paolini will face 2019 champion Bianca Andreescu in her opener. This is becoming a familiar match-up on the major stage this year: the pair played in the the third round of both Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Paolini won both encounters, and went on to reach her first two Grand Slam finals.

No.1 seed Iga Swiatek will face lucky loser Kamilla Rakhimova in the first round, while No.2 seed Aryna Sabalenka takes on qualifier Priscilla Hon. No.3 seed Coco Gauff is in Sabalenka's half, and will open her title defense against Varvara Gracheva. No.4 seed Elena Rybakina is in Swiatek's half, and will start against qualifier Destanee Aiava.

The bottom half, with Sabalenka and Gauff, will open play on Monday. The top half, with Swiatek and Rybakina, will get started on Tuesday.

Click here to view the full draw. Here's how the four quarters break down:

First quarter

Swiatek's projected quarterfinal opponent is the in-form No.6 seed Jessica Pegula, the Toronto champion and Cincinnati runner-up this month. Pegula will have to navigate a stacked section of her own first, though.

She opens against fellow American Shelby Rogers, with the winner guaranteed to face a former Grand Slam champion in the second round: either 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu or 2020 Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin. Raducanu and Kenin will be playing for the first time.

Whoever emerges from that cluster could face a dangerous big hitter in the fourth round. No.11 seed Danielle Collins, playing the last US Open of her career, is Pegula's projected opponent -- but will potentially have to get past No.18 seed Diana Shnaider, who was ranked outside the Top 100 in January but has rocketed into the Top 20 after winning three titles on three different surfaces this year. Collins will be bidding to make the fourth round at her home major for the second time.

Swiatek, seeking to lift the US Open trophy for the second time, could face either big-hitting No.16 seed Liudmila Samsonova or No.21 seed Mirra Andreeva in the fourth round. The Pole faced Andreeva for the first time in the Cincinnati quarterfinals last week, edging the 17-year-old Roland Garros semifinalist 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.

First-round matches to watch: [21] Mirra Andreeva vs. Camila Osorio, [11] Danielle Collins vs. Caroline Dolehide, Nadia Podoroska vs. [18] Diana Shnaider, Emma Raducanu vs. Sofia Kenin

Second quarter

The Osaka-Ostapenko and Paolini-Andreescu blockbusters leap out, particularly as the winners will be on course to meet in the fourth round. They only scratch the surface of the wild second quarter, though.

The winner of Osaka and Ostapenko could play 2023 semifinalist Karolina Muchova in the second round. The Czech returned to action in June following a 10-month layoff due to wrist surgery, but already reached the Palermo final last month. However, Muchova's first-round opponent Katie Volynets cannot be counted out in this section; the American's relentlessly consistent game is tailor-made for exposing any lingering rust. Whoever emerges from that section is projected to face No.23 seed Leylah Fernandez, the 2021 runner-up, in the third round.

Meanwhile, the winner of Paolini and Andreescu could face 2016 finalist Karolina Pliskova in the second round -- and, in the third, one of the year's best giant-killers, No.30 seed Yulia Putintseva, who has taken down both the World No.1 and World No.2 within the past two months. Putintseva faces big-hitting 19-year-old Linda Noskova, the Australian Open quarterfinalist, in her opener.

Rybakina, who is returning from a bout of acute bronchitis that kept her out of the Olympic Games, could face either No.28 seed Caroline Garcia or former World No.1 Caroline Wozniacki in the third round, and is projected to face No.15 seed Anna Kalinskaya in the fourth round.

First-round matches to watch: [22] Beatriz Haddad Maia vs. Elina Avanesyan, [10] Jelena Ostapenko vs. [WC] Naomi Osaka, Karolina Muchova vs. Katie Volynets, Anastasia Potapova vs. [23] Leylah Fernandez, [30] Yulia Putintseva vs. Linda Noskova, [SR] Bianca Andreescu vs. [5] Jasmine Paolini

Third quarter

Though Gauff's section doesn't quite rival the second quarter for blockbusters off the bat, it holds the promise of several intriguing clashes in the third round and beyond. The first seed the American is projected to face is No.27 Elina Svitolina in what would be a rematch of their excellent Auckland final in January. Gauff's projected fourth-round opponents are both players who have defeated her this year: No.13 Emma Navarro ousted her in the fourth round of Wimbledon, while No.19 Marta Kostyuk edged her in a third-set tiebreak in Stuttgart. Gauff has won just one match since the Olympic Games, falling to Shnaider in Toronto and Putintseva in Cincinnati, and will have her hands full here.

In the quarterfinals, Gauff is slated to face No.8 seed and freshly-crowned Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova. The Czech has only played one tournament since winning her second Grand Slam singles trophy, reaching the Olympic quarterfinals. Krejcikova opens against qualifier Marina Bassols Ribera, and could have to navigate the threat of No.26 seed Paula Badosa in the third round. The former World No.2 has won 20 of her past 26 matches, including a fourth career title in Washington and a semifinal run in Cincinnati.

Badosa will have to navigate a pair of tricky shotmakers first: she opens against former Wimbledon quarterfinalist Viktorija Golubic, the owner of a rare one-handed backhand, and could face the net skills of Taylor Townsend in the second round. Townsend, who reached the last 16 here in 2019, cracked the Top 50 for the first time this week after reaching the Toronto quarterfinals and Cincinnati third round.

In the fourth round, Krejcikova or Badosa could face either No.9 seed Maria Sakkari, three-time US Open runner-up and No.20 seed Victoria Azarenka, or 2017 champion Sloane Stephens.

First-round matches to watch: Martina Trevisan vs. Taylor Townsend, Viktorija Golubic vs. [26] Paula Badosa, [WC] McCartney Kessler vs. [19] Marta Kostyuk, [27] Elina Svitolina vs. Maria Lourdes Carle, Varvara Gracheva vs. [3] Coco Gauff

Fourth quarter

After defeating Swiatek and Pegula to win Cincinnati last week, Sabalenka enters the US Open -- where she has been a semifinalist twice, in 2021 and 2022, and the runner-up last year -- as one of the top favorites to take the title. A quarterfinal showdown against Zheng or Anisimova, who defeated Sabalenka in Toronto, would be a blockbuster.

However, banana skins lie in wait for all concerned. Sabalenka could face Lulu Sun, the New Zealander who delivered an eye-catching run to the Wimbledon quarterfinals as a qualifier, in the second round. Sun has continued to impress since; this week, she has made the quarterfinals (so far) in Monterrey.

Sabalenka could face No.14 Madison Keys in the fourth round if seeds hold. Keys has not won a match since Wimbledon; she sustained a hamstring injury in her fourth-round against Paolini there, and retired from her Toronto opener in her only outing since.

However, Keys has a strong history at Flushing Meadows. She was runner-up in 2017 and reached the semifinals in 2018 and 2023, where she led Sabalenka 6-0, 5-3 before falling.

If Zheng manages to get past Anisimova, she is projected to face either No.12 seed Daria Kasatkina or No.24 seed Donna Vekic in the fourth round; the latter would be a rematch of the Olympic final.

First-round matches to watch: [7] Zheng Qinwen vs. [WC] Amanda Anisimova, Erika Andreeva vs. Yuan Yue, [14] Madison Keys vs. Katerina Siniakova, [Q] Maya Joint vs. Laura Siegemund, Magda Linette vs. [WC] Iva Jovic, Veronika Kudermetova vs. [33] Elise Mertens