What the US Open Withdrawal Count Is Actually Counting

The number attached to the US Open’s withdrawal list depends on what you are counting, and most of the counts circulating this week are counting two different things at once. Sixteen players have come off the men’s and women’s entry lists since they were published in July, each one triggering a replacement from the alternate list.

Jack Draper is not among them. Neither, in the strict sense, are several of the names being listed alongside him. That distinction matters more than the total, because it separates the players who vacated a main-draw place from the players who never held one.

The largest single absence is Jannik Sinner. The world No. 1 withdrew Aug. 21 with a right knee problem that had already cost him Montreal and Cincinnati, and his place went to Carlos Taberner on a protected ranking. It is the first major Sinner has missed since Wimbledon in 2019, and it reorders the top of the draw: Alexander Zverev becomes the top seed, Carlos Alcaraz the second, with Alcaraz returning from four months out with a wrist injury and no tune-up event behind him.

Joao Fonseca followed on Monday, the most recent name to come off the list and the third top-30 man out of the men’s field. The Brazilian beat Botic van de Zandschulp in his opening match in Cincinnati and pulled out before the third round with a problem on the left side of his abdomen.

“After undergoing tests and starting treatment for my abdomen, it became clear to me and my team that I need more time to fully recover so I can compete at a high level,” he wrote on Instagram. Because his withdrawal came after the alternate list was exhausted, his place goes to a lucky loser out of qualifying rather than to the next player in line.

Holger Rune’s absence is the one that took longest to resolve and was reported wrongly before it was reported correctly. The Dane, out since rupturing an Achilles tendon in Stockholm last October, spent a fortnight being written out of the tournament on the strength of a podcast interview, corrected the record himself, and then withdrew on his own terms on Aug. 21, saying he and his team had decided against making a Grand Slam his first event back. Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, the other seeded man out, is managing a back injury that also kept him out of both North American Masters events.

Draper is the case that breaks the arithmetic. His ranking had fallen far enough that he was never a direct acceptance — he sat on the alternate list, and would have needed a wild card or qualifying to play. His withdrawal removes nobody from the draw and promotes nobody into it, which is why he appears on some lists and not others. The underlying story is the same either way: a bone bruise in his left arm, an injury he has carried for more than a year, and a season that will end without a single Grand Slam match.

On the women’s side the attrition is numerically heavier and concentrated further down the rankings. Victoria Mboko is the only player who would have been seeded, sidelined since an MCL injury at Queen’s in June. Hailey Baptiste and Varvara Gracheva are both out with ACL injuries. Emma Raducanu, the 2021 champion here, withdrew with a stress fracture, and her place went to Anna Blinkova.

The name that is not on any of these lists, and the one worth watching this week, is Elena Rybakina. She retired five games into her Cincinnati quarterfinal against Iga Swiatek with an ankle problem and said afterward that walking was painful and that an MRI would follow. No result has been made public and no withdrawal has been announced.

She remains in the field, and she can reach world No. 1 by reaching the semifinals. Frances Tiafoe is in a comparable position after pulling out of the mixed doubles with an injury; nothing has been said about his singles entry either. The lists below reflect the entry lists as they stand. The singles draws are made Thursday, Aug. 27, and any withdrawal after that point is filled by a lucky loser rather than an alternate.

Men — off the entry list, with replacements

• Jannik Sinner — right knee — replaced by Carlos Taberner
• Joao Fonseca — abdomen — place to a lucky loser
• Alejandro Davidovich Fokina — back — replaced by Alexei Popyrin
• Holger Rune — Achilles — replaced by Facundo Diaz Acosta
• Sebastian Korda — replaced by Aleksandar Vukic
• Ethan Quinn — replaced by Martin Damm
• Gabriel Diallo — replaced by Wu Yibing
• Emilio Nava — replaced by Benjamin Bonzi

Also absent: Jack Draper, with a bone bruise in his left arm, who was on the alternate list rather than in the main draw.

Women — off the entry list, with replacements

• Victoria Mboko — MCL, Queen’s — replaced by Mananchaya Sawangkaew
• Emma Raducanu — stress fracture — replaced by Anna Blinkova
• Hailey Baptiste — ACL — replaced by Kaitlin Quevedo
• Varvara Gracheva — ACL — replaced by Anastasia Zakharova
• Jaqueline Cristian — replaced by Darja Vidmanova
• Ajla Tomljanovic — replaced by Ella Seidel
• Laura Siegemund — replaced by Nadia Podoroska
• Jil Teichmann — replaced by Julia Grabher
• Irina-Camelia Begu — replaced by Elsa Jacquemot