This guide to US Open betting covers match head-to-heads, set betting, game and set totals, and outright markets on who lifts the trophy.

The 2026 main draw runs from Sunday 30 August to Sunday 13 September at Flushing Meadows in New York, on the fastest hard courts of the Grand Slam calendar.

US Open 2026: Dates, Schedule and Session Times in AEST

The tournament fills three weeks of the calendar once qualifying and Fan Week are counted, but the main draw is a fortnight.

• Fan Week: Sunday 23 to Saturday 29 August
• Qualifying: Monday 24 to Thursday 27 August
• Mixed doubles: played during Fan Week in a short-set format
• Main draw first round: Sunday 30 August to Tuesday 1 September
• Second round: Wednesday 2 to Thursday 3 September
• Third round: Friday 4 to Saturday 5 September
• Fourth round: Sunday 6 to Monday 7 September
• Quarter-finals: Tuesday 8 to Wednesday 9 September
• Semi-finals: Thursday 10 to Friday 11 September
• Women's singles final: Saturday 12 September
• Men's singles final: Sunday 13 September

Session times converted to Australian time

New York sits 14 hours behind AEST during the tournament, and Australia doesn't move to daylight saving until October, so the conversions hold all fortnight.

• Day session (11:00am ET): 1:00am AEST the following morning
• Night session (7:00pm ET): 9:00am AEST the following morning
• Women's final (4:00pm ET Saturday 12 September): 6:00am AEST Sunday 13 September
• Men's final (2:00pm ET Sunday 13 September): 4:00am AEST Monday 14 September

Perth punters knock 2 hours off those AEST times, Adelaide and Darwin 30 minutes.

How the rounds and the draw shape the markets

Night sessions are at Arthur Ashe Stadium only, and there are 13 of them running from the first round through to the men's semi-final.

They're the marquee matches, which is why the 9:00am AEST slot matters. That's the session most Australians can actually watch live, and live markets move fastest when the crowd is in and the lights are on.

Outright prices shift hard once the draw is released, usually a day or two before play starts. A contender landing in the same quarter as the top seed will drift, while someone with a soft run to the second week firms.

Prices then reset after every round as players progress or go out, so an outright backed on day one is priced on a completely different set of assumptions to one backed in the second week.

The men's draw is where best-of-five matters most. A five-setter in round two has knock-on effects three days later, and that carries into how later-round markets are framed.

Players to Watch in 2026

Carlos Alcaraz is the defending men's champion, having beaten Jannik Sinner in the 2025 final.

Sinner holds the world No. 1 ranking and arrives off back-to-back Wimbledon titles after beating Alexander Zverev in the 2026 final, so the Sinner vs Alcaraz debate will carry most of the market interest again.

Novak Djokovic, Alex de Minaur, Ben Shelton, Felix Auger-Aliassime, Daniil Medvedev and Taylor Fritz round out a top 10 with genuine hard-court credentials.

Aryna Sabalenka defends the women's title after beating Amanda Anisimova in the 2025 final, and she's held the world No. 1 ranking for an extended run.

Elena Rybakina, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff and Mirra Andreeva sit behind her, while Linda Nosková arrived at a career-high ranking after winning Wimbledon in 2026. Iga Świątek remains in the mix.

The Australian contingent

Ten Australians earned direct entry into the 2026 main draw, which is a strong showing by recent standards.

Men's singles:

• Alex de Minaur, the highest-ranked Australian and a three-time US Open quarter-finalist with a 22-9 career record at the event
• James Duckworth, who beat Tallon Griekspoor at Wimbledon
• Thanasi Kokkinakis, in on a protected ranking of No. 84
• Rinky Hijikata, who reached the second week in 2023
• Adam Walton, fresh from a Challenger final in Newport

Women's singles:

• Ajla Tomljanović, a 2022 quarter-finalist at Flushing Meadows
• Daria Kasatkina, twice a second-week player in New York
• Maya Joint, who won her first Grand Slam main-draw match at the 2024 US Open
• Kimberly Birrell
• Talia Gibson

Aleksandar Vukic and Alexei Popyrin sat just outside the cutoff of No. 101 and could still make the draw on withdrawals. De Minaur's record at this event is the standout number in that list.

Three quarter-finals and a winning percentage north of 70 per cent puts him among the more reliable Australian propositions at any Slam.

US Open Betting Markets

For the latest US Open odds and markets, head to our live Tennis markets .

Head-to-head. Pick the match winner. No margin, no set score, just who wins. This is the highest-volume tennis market and the simplest entry point.

Set betting. Back the exact set score, such as 3-1 in a men's match or 2-0 in a women's match. Harder to land than head-to-head, which is reflected in the pricing.

Game and set totals. Over/under on how many games or sets the match lasts. Two big servers on a quick court trend towards more games and tie-breaks. A heavy mismatch in an early round trends the other way. Worth knowing that a men's over/under on sets prices differently to a women's match because of the best-of-five format.

Handicaps and line betting. A player gives or receives a start in games or sets, which brings a lopsided matchup back towards even money. Our handicap betting guide and line betting explained mechanics.

Outrights and futures. Back a player to win the title, or to reach a specific round such as the semi-finals. Available before the draw and open throughout, with prices updating each round. Backing early gets you a longer price and the risk that your player draws badly.

Live betting. Prices update point by point once the match starts. A player broken early in the first set will shift significantly, and the deciding-set tie-break rule means a match at 6-6 in the final set is a genuine coin-flip regardless of what came before.

New to decimal odds? A hypothetical price of 2.50 returns $25 on a $10 stake including your stake, while a hypothetical 1.60 returns $16.

Our guide to how betting odds work covers the arithmetic and the terminology, including favourite, underdog and each-way.

One practical note: tennis matches can end in retirements and walkovers, and the settlement rules differ by market. Check the rules for the specific market before you get on.

Hard Court Form: What to Look For

Generic form research doesn't get you far at the US Open. The surface is specific and so is the calendar leading into it.

The lead-in swing is the form guide. The Canadian Open runs 2 to 13 August and Cincinnati 13 to 22 August, both at Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 level, with Washington before them and Winston-Salem in the final week.

These are the same conditions on the same continent within a month of the Slam. A player who made a deep run in Cincinnati has more relevant form than one who won on clay in July.

Serve numbers carry more weight here than anywhere else. First-serve percentage, service games held and break points saved tell you more on a fast hard court than a raw win-loss record. Aces are a useful signal, but hold percentage is the number that survives a bad day.

Five-set stamina separates the men's draw. Best of five over a fortnight in late-summer New York punishes players with thin recent match volume or a long layoff.

Look at how many matches a player has actually completed in the previous month, and whether they've been going deep or exiting early.

Heat, humidity and the night switch. Late August in New York brings serious heat and humidity, and it's a real factor in day sessions.

Conditions change under lights: the air is cooler and heavier, the ball tends to sit up, and matches that looked like they'd be dominated by a big server can turn into grinding baseline exchanges. A player's day record and night record at this event are not always the same thing.

Court speed. The hard courts at Flushing Meadows sit at the quicker end of the tour. Flat, aggressive hitters and strong servers get more out of them than defensive counter-punchers who thrive on slower surfaces.

US Open vs the Other Grand Slams

The US Open is the fourth and final Slam of the year, after the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon. Each has quirks that change how you approach the markets.

The hard courts at Flushing Meadows produce faster rallies and a more consistent bounce than Wimbledon's grass or the clay at Roland Garros.

That tends to favour power servers and aggressive baseliners over players who rely on sliding, defence and long rallies.

Scheduling is another difference. The US Open runs in late August and early September with the heat and humidity of a New York summer, and it leans harder on night sessions than any other Slam.

Wimbledon has a curfew, the Australian Open plays in January heat, Roland Garros has slow conditions that stretch matches out. The one thing now standardised across all four is the deciding set: a 10-point tie-break at 6-6, in both men's and women's draws, since 2022.

For Australian punters there's a practical difference too. Roland Garros and Wimbledon finish in the small hours AEST. US Open night sessions land at 9:00am, and the women's final is a 6:00am Sunday start.