The U.S. Open, the final tournament of the tennis season, is getting underway. The world’s best players are heading to the U.S.T.A. Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, N.Y., to battle it out for the chance to play a championship match at Arthur Ashe Stadium, the largest tennis arena in the world.
The players come freighted with great expectations, previous victories and defeats, aches and pains, personal dramas and professional rivalries, all of which they will carry with them out on the court when they play. Tennis is a game that exposes a lot about its players, which is one of the things that makes it so beloved around the world.
In this episode of the “Sunday Daily,” the host Natalie Kitroeff talks with Matthew Futterman, a senior tennis writer for The Athletic and the author of “The Cruelest Game: Chasing Greatness in Professional Tennis,” about this year’s crop of players. They’ll dig into the biggest rivalries and dramas brewing in the tournament ahead.
On Today’s Episode:
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/author/matthew-futterman/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Matthew Futterman</a>, a senior tennis writer for The Athletic, and the author of “The Cruelest Game: Chasing Greatness in Professional Tennis.”
Background Reading:
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7530947/2026/08/23/us-open-mens-title-alcaraz-djokovic-zverev-american-man/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">“U.S. Open Men’s Title Contenders: Jannik Sinner Cut, Carlos Alcaraz In and a U.S. Man’s Big Chance?”</a>
Photo credit: Al Bello/Getty Images.&nbsp;
For more information on today’s episode, visit <a href="http://nytimes.com/thedaily?smid=pc-thedaily">nytimes.com/thedaily</a>. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Subscribe today at <a href="http://nytimes.com/podcasts">nytimes.com/podcasts</a> or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher">https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher</a>. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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