The Cincinnati Open draw is made Tuesday afternoon, and for the second time in nine days a Masters 1000 title will be decided without either of the two men who have spent two seasons dividing the sport’s largest prizes between them.
Jannik Sinner withdrew Sunday with a right knee injury, five days after Carlos Alcaraz came out with the wrist problem that has kept him off court since April. Neither entered Montreal either, where the men’s Masters finishes Thursday — the same day Cincinnati’s main draw begins. Taken together, the entire North American runway to the US Open will be played without the world No. 1 and without the man who won the last major of 2025.
What that leaves behind is the last title of real consequence before New York. Cincinnati is the final Masters 1000 of the summer, played in conditions closer to Flushing Meadows than anything else on the calendar, and it is the last chance for anyone outside the top two to arrive at a major holding a significant hard-court trophy. Qualifying runs Tuesday and Wednesday and the main draw runs Aug. 13-23 at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio.
Alexander Zverev is the highest-ranked man in the field and won this title in 2021. He does not arrive in form, having lost his opening match in Montreal to Tallon Griekspoor, but the ranking arithmetic works for him regardless. Alcaraz’s 1,000 points from last year’s Cincinnati title come off at the start of the week, which is enough on its own to move the Spaniard back behind Zverev without the German playing a point.
Novak Djokovic is the other obvious answer, and on this evidence the most interesting one. He has won here three times, in 2018, 2020 and 2023, and Cincinnati is only his third non-major appearance of 2026 after he skipped Canada altogether. He has not won a major since New York in 2023. A tournament of this size with both of the players who have beaten him to the recent big titles absent is not an opening that has come around often.
Below them the field is deeper than the withdrawal list implies. Felix Auger-Aliassime, Daniil Medvedev, Alex de Minaur and Flavio Cobolli are all entered, as are Taylor Fritz and Ben Shelton. Fritz won Washington last month. Shelton is the reigning Canadian Open champion and has never gone past the quarterfinals in Mason. Twenty-four Americans are in the singles field, more than from any other country, and none of them will get a clearer run at a Masters 1000 title this year.
The counterargument is worth stating plainly. Six men have come out of this draw, and the absentee list keeps growing on both sides. A title won in a thinned field proves less than one won through it, and everyone holding the trophy on Aug. 23 will know that the two players missing are the two most likely to be standing on Arthur Ashe Stadium three weeks later.
It still matters for the reason everything in August matters. US Open seeding is set from the rankings of Aug. 24, the Monday after this tournament ends, which makes Cincinnati the last event capable of moving anyone’s position in the New York draw. Sinner drops the 650 points he earned as runner-up here last year and remains No. 1 regardless; his lead is large enough that the ranking is not in question before the US Open. For everyone below him, a fortnight in Ohio is the difference between a seeding that avoids the top two in the early rounds and one that does not.
So the honest answer to who wins Cincinnati is that it is genuinely open for the first time in a long time, and that the value of the answer is limited. The winner takes the biggest trophy available this month and a seeding that may shape his first week in New York. What he will not take is any information about the question the sport actually wants answered, which is what happens when Sinner and Alcaraz are both fit and both in the draw. That is three weeks away, and at least one of them has still not confirmed he will be there.
