ATP Tour

Monfils, Damm among US Open wild cards; Nishikori in qualifying

The US Open announced its men’s singles wild cards on Tuesday, with former World No. 6 Gael Monfils and three-time ATP Tour champion Alexei Popyrin joined by five Americans in the main draw at Flushing Meadows.

Monfils, who is competing in his final season on Tour, will make his latest appearance at the hard-court major alongside Popyrin and Americans Martin Damm, Michael Zheng, J.J. Wolf, Jack Kennedy and Sebastian Gorzny.

Kennedy, Zheng and Gorzny are all qualifiers for the PIF ATP Next Gen Accelerator, which offers additional playing opportunities and support to some of the sport’s most promising young talents across junior, college and traditional pathways. Read more about the programme here.

Eighteen-year-old Kennedy arrives in New York as the USTA National 18s champion, while Damm secured his Top 100 debut earlier this month.

Zheng is also on the brink of a Top 100 breakthrough. The 22-year-old turned professional in May this year after four years of college tennis at Columbia University, where he won back-to-back NCAA singles titles in 2024 and 2025, and is currently up to No. 105 in the PIF ATP Live Rankings.

The US Open will also mark another significant chapter for Kei Nishikori, who, like Monfils, is set to retire at the end of the 2026 season. The former World No. 4 reached the final in New York in 2014, when he became the first Japanese man to reach a Grand Slam singles final. Nishikori has received a wild card into this year’s qualifying draw.

He will be joined in qualifying by Jordan Lee, Trevor Svajda, Andre Ilagan, Spencer Johnson, Michael Antonius, Andrew Johnson and Daniel Milavsky.

Main-draw action at the US Open begins on 30 August at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, with the tournament running through 13 September.