Iga Swiatek and Carlos Alcaraz underlined their hard court credentials ahead of the US Open with victories over Jasmine Paolini and Jannik Sinner respectively in the women's and men's singles tournaments at the Cincinnati Open.

After a rough start to the year, Świątek (+310) is now basically neck and neck odds-wise with Sabalenka (+290), who is, again, the defending US Open champion. If anyone can unseat Sabalenka, it sure feels like Świątek is the most likely to do it.

It was clear immediately that Jannik Sinner was not himself in Cincinnati.

Following her 7-5, 6-4 final win over Jasmine Paolini to earn her first Cincinnati Open title on Monday night, the world No. 2 took a private jet along with Carlos Alcaraz to New York to arrive in time for the U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament Tuesday.

Afterward, Sinner didn't have a traditional press conference. Instead, he was asked a couple of questions by the ATP media and provided answers. One of the things asked was if there was anything specific he wanted to work on going into the US Open.

Carlos Alcaraz seemingly still plans to play the US Open mixed doubles with Emma Raducanu. There had been some question marks about whether he would pull out due to reaching the final of the

Raducanu has laughed off rumours of a love interest.

Carlos Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev are set to play along with Iga Swiatek and 45-year-old veteran Venus Williams when the US Open mixed doubles takes centre stage like never before. Instead of being crammed in amid the singles and doubles matches at the main draw event,