2024 U.S. Open: Can Coco Gauff challenge heavy favorites?

Coco Gauff kicked off her 2024 U.S. Open with an easy victory over little-known Varvara Gracheva, but can the top-ranked American overcome a challenging summer to successfully defend her title?

The third-seeded Gauff opened the tournament at +1000 by DraftKings to win the women's title. That's well behind top-ranked Iga Swiatek at +400 and No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka at +210.

Sabalenka fell to Gauff in last year's final and is seeking to add a U.S. Open to her pair of Australian Open titles. The Belarusian star leads the draw with 19 percent of the total bets and 31 percent of the money backing her to claim the trophy at DraftKings.

Swiatek is next with 16 and 24 percent of the action, respectively. The clay-court star did claim the U.S. Open title in 2022 and added a fourth French Open to her trophy case earlier this summer. But she crashed out in the third round of Wimbledon before losing to Qinwen Zheng in the semifinals of the Olympics and in straight sets to Sabalenka in the semis of the Cincinnati Open.

It has been an even tougher summer for Gauff, who followed a stunning fourth-round upset at Wimbledon with a third-round loss at the Olympics. She then failed to get out of the third round in either of her two warm-up events to the U.S. Open.

Gauff, 20, made quick work of Gracheva on Monday and will next face unranked Tatjana Maria in a second-round match on Wednesday. Her half of the draw also includes 27th-seeded Elina Svitolina and the seventh-seeded Zheng ahead of a potential semifinal showdown against Sabalenka.

Swiatek also faces a potentially difficult semifinal match against fourth-seeded Elena Rybakina, who has drawn just 3 percent of the money at +1000.

No other player in the women's draw has shorter than the +1400 odds the sixth-seeded Jessica Pegula opened the tournament with.

--Field Level Media