U.S. Open wild cards: Serena Williams keeps fans waiting on first appearance in four years

Wild cards at Grand Slams can be fraught at the best of times. There are reciprocal arrangements between the nations that host them, crowd favorites looking for one last hurrah and rising talents vying for a chance to perform on the biggest stages in tennis.

At the Australian, French and U.S. Opens and at Wimbledon, the vast majority of them go to players from the host nation, already home to the wealthiest tennis federations with the most money to support their players with development programs.

Everyone else spends the year trying to get a high enough ranking to earn a spot into the main draw. Wild cards haven’t yet achieved that goal, which is why they need one to get in — and to pick up the $100,000 or so that comes with participating in the first round.

At this year’s U.S. Open, all of that is in play — before the small matter of one of the greatest players of all time possibly returning to the tournament at which she had appeared to say goodbye to the sport that she dominated.

Serena Williams does not yet have a wild card into the 2026 women’s singles, but one remains unallocated and the 23-time Grand Slam champion is at the front of the queue.

Williams, 44, last played in New York in 2022, winning two matches before falling to Australia’s Ajla Tomljanović in a farewell that shook Arthur Ashe Stadium and the wider foundations of the sport all at once. If she has recovered from a knee injury she sustained playing her first match in four years at Wimbledon and wants the last wild card, it’s hers for the taking.

Venus Williams, 46, has received one, despite a 0-13 record in singles since she won the first match of her return to tennis at the 2025 D.C. Open. She is joined by the 2017 U.S. Open champion, Sloane Stephens, who is 33 and trying to come back from a debilitating foot injury. Stephens has been a mainstay of Grand Slam commentary in the past year, but has impressed at the Cincinnati Open as she returns to the court.

Carol Young Suh Lee, 24, the American who accumulated the most points since Wimbledon among players who did not qualify by ranking; Reese Brantmeier, the NCAA singles champion and the winner of the American collegiate player wild-card playoff, and Thea Frodin, the girls’ under-18s national champion who played a young Venus Williams in the Oscar-winning biographical film “King Richard”, round out the field.

Venus and Serena played doubles together Monday night at the Cincinnati Open, losing a match tiebreak to Peyton Stearns of the U.S. and Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine. They could appear together in women’s doubles in New York, but would also require a wild card entry.

On the men’s side, college tennis superstar Michael Zheng receives a wild card after qualifying for the Australian and French Opens while still at Columbia University. Zheng, 22, qualified for Wimbledon after graduation and qualified for the U.S. Open last year while enrolled at Columbia. He also won the NCAA title his junior and senior years.

He is joined by Martin Damm, a 22-year-old lefty from Florida who has been recording some good wins on the ATP Tour this year after recovering from an arm injury that set him back in the 2024 season. Damm is currently the world No. 94. Joining him are J.J. Wolf, 27, who accumulated the most summer hard court points by an American who did not meet the ranking qualifications; Sebastian Gorzny, 22, who won the men’s collegiate playoff and Jack Kennedy, the boys’ under-18s national champion.

Gaël Monfils, 39, one of the sport’s most beloved players, received the French wild card through the FFT. He is retiring after this season. Alexei Popyrin, 27, received the Australian wild card.

The USTA is also holding one men’s wild card back, waiting to see how a few players perform this week.

There are also some notable wild cards for the qualifying tournament, which gets underway next week and which fans can attend for free. Keep an eye out for Jordan Lee, who won the Wimbledon boys’ title last month, and Michael Antonius, who was a finalist in the French Open competition. The 36-year-old Kei Nishikori of Japan, the 2014 U.S. Open finalist, will also be playing his final U.S. Open after announcing that he is retiring this year.

On the women’s side, there are two former world No. 1 juniors to keep an eye on: Julieta Pareja, who is 17, and Kristina Penickova, also 17. Don’t be confused if there’s another player who looks a lot like Penickova in the same tournament. That’s her identical twin sister, Annika, 16, who also received a wild card.

The U.S. Open has also added a qualifying challenge, played on the first Monday of the week before the main draws start. Four men and four women will play semifinals and then a final, with the winner earning a place in the qualifying draw.

The tournament earlier announced some of its wild cards for the star-studded mixed doubles event, which also takes place the week before the singles events start. The main-draw action gets under way Aug. 30, with Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka the defending singles champions.

‘If you believe in wild cards’

It’s impossible to analyze the women’s wild-card field without quickly pivoting into a meditation on Serena Williams. Four years after “evolving away” from the sport, she remains one of its biggest stars, inhaling the oxygen of any tennis room or tournament she enters.

She did nothing Monday night in Cincinnati, where she teamed up with her sister to play doubles, to suggest that she isn’t prepared to participate. If she does, she immediately becomes one of the dangerous “floaters” in the draw, in part because of the power of the packed Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd (and it will be Arthur Ashe Stadium) that will greet any match she plays if she does take up a wild card.

Williams still has one of the great serves. The question is whether she can move well enough at 44 to play the all-court game that most elite women’s tennis demands these days, and she showed at Wimbledon that four years away hadn’t done too much damage to the quality she is capable of delivering.

Watch out for Brantmeier, who is a tough-as-nails competitor. Venus Williams appears to be in a valedictory phase, at least in singles, while Stephens will also be a difficult draw for some players who have played much more tennis than her of late.

On the men’s side, Zheng’s outstanding graduation season has more than earned him his wild card, while crowd-favorite Monfils was always a banker for a wild card into his final U.S. Open.

When it comes to the one that remains unallocated, there’s Jack Draper, the former world No. 4, to consider. He is coming through a chronic arm injury and needs match time, but going into five-set matches off two sobering performances at the Canadian and Cincinnati Opens may not be the path that will bring him longterm success.

Other candidates? There’s no question that Stan Wawrinka desperately wants it. Wawrinka, like Monfils, is retiring this year. He’s 41. He’s the world No. 125. He won the U.S. Open in 2016, beating Novak Djokovic in four sets.

If you believe in wild cards, that’s a pretty good case to make.

Wawrinka’s biggest strike against him is that he’s not American. And Switzerland does not host a Grand Slam, so he is not eligible for a reciprocal agreement wild card. He’s playing a Challenger Tour event in Cancun, Mexico, to show that he can win some more matches, but that seems random and absurd. Wawrinka is a four-time Grand Slam champion. Monfils has never won a Grand Slam. He never made a final. But he’s French, so there was an obvious route to giving him one that didn’t take another player’s spot.

Americans have plenty of bites at the wild-card apple. As long as these things exist and former champions often get them, give one to Wawrinka. He’s still going.

U.S. Open men’s singles wild cards

Martin Damm

Michael Zheng

J.J. Wolf

Sebastian Gorzny

Jack Kennedy

Gaël Monfils

Alexei Popyrin

TBD

U.S. Open women’s singles wild cards

Venus Williams

Sloane Stephens

Carol Young Suh Lee

Reese Brantmeier

Thea Frodin

Léolia Jeanjean

Taylah Preston

TBD

U.S. Open men’s singles qualifying wild cards

Jordan Lee

Trevor Svajda

Kei Nishikori

Andre Ilagan

Spencer Johnson

Michael Antonius

Andrew Johnson

Daniel Milavsky

US Open Qualifying Wild Card Challenge winner

U.S. Open women’s singles qualifying wild cards

Janae Preston

Katrina Scott

Caroline Dolehide

Ayana Akli

Annika Penickova

Kristina Penickova

Julieta Pareja

Savannah Broadus

U.S. Open Qualifying Wild Card Challenge winner

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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