Early round U.S. Open matchups to look for

6 foot 11. Oh, my gosh. OK, well, listen. Coco Gauff-- Yeah. --a big star. People paying attention. She had an early exit last year after winning the 2023 US Open. Now she's got new guidance after firing one of her coaches. How is she expected to fare this year? Yeah, it's a difficult one to know really. I mean, Coco's had quite a mixed year. She won the French Open, but then went out in the first round of Wimbledon, and then she's just got rid of a coach. She's brought on this biomechanics expert to fix her serve, a guy called Gavin McMillan, who worked previously with Sabalenka, sorted her serve out. And if Coco Gauff could sort out her serve, which has been a bit of a liability for her, you would think she can really kick on. And given she's already a two-time Grand Slam champion, that's a scary proposition. But it's hard to know-- will he have been able to make those changes with her this quickly? We got to wait and see. She can be brilliant one week, less so the next. So it's tough to say. But she is a former champion here. And sometimes things just happen for her in New York. That chemistry, that magic, she's going to be hoping for that this time around. All right. So really quickly if you could-- men's side, women's side, who's going to win? Right now, if you had to pick a winner. Yeah, it's so hard. But I'm going to be boring and go with the world number one and defending champions on both sides-- Jannik Sinner for the men, Aryna Sabalenka, who hasn't won a Grand Slam this year and has also been a bit up and down, but I'm backing her to get it together here and defend her title as well.

If I recall, last year she was not happy, and the fans were-- it was a back and forth, if I recall correctly. Well, that yeah, two years ago she lost the final to Coco, and the crowd really got on her back, and yeah, she didn't like it. Then last year she won the final beat, another American, Jessica Pegula.

That's right. That's right.

And it felt like she put those bad memories to rest a little bit.

Yes.

But we'll see, is she going to be haunted? Yeah, but is she going to be haunted by memories of that Coco match? Coco also beat her at Roland Garros, and it unraveled. So there's so much going on with her. It's going to be fascinating. But yeah, I'm backing her to get over the line again. It will be. I was out there earlier today, got my credentials, so I plan to be out there for some coverage and a little bit of fun. Charlie Eccleshare, hope to see you-- Right. --hope to see you out there. Thank you so much.