Five RotoWire tennis experts give their takes on their fantasy tennis snake draft strategies, sleepers and value picks for the U.S. Open after participating in a six-team fantasy tennis draft on the Drop Shot. The team with second pick was unable to draft due to a scheduling conflict and auto-drafted.
This U.S. Open fantasy tennis draft took place Tuesday night, prior to the draw coming out. Each team has 10 roster spots and will start eight players for the U.S. Open.
Sasha Yodashkin (Pick 1):
WTA No. 1 and two-time defending U.S. Open champion Aryna Sabalenka was the safe choice for my first overall pick given the rash of injury concerns for other top contenders in both the men's and women's draw. I couldn't pass up 2026 French Open champion Mirra Andreeva and 2025 U.S. Open finalist Amanda Anisimova on the Round 2-3 turn, even though starting with three WTA picks left me underexposed to the top contenders in the depleted ATP draw.
I balanced my lineup by leaning heavily into men's players the rest of the way, selecting six ATP players in my last seven picks. Americans Brandon Nakashima (Round 4) and Learner Tien (Round 6) are both in strong form heading into the U.S. Open. Nakashima posted a combined 9-2 record at the recent hard-court Masters 1000 events, reaching the final of the Canadian Open and semifinals in Cincinnati. Tien went 5-2 over that span, with "quality losses" to eventual Canadian Open champion Ben Shelton and Cincinnati runner-up Frances Tiafoe. Those two draft picks were sandwiched around my fifth-round selection of team namesake Jakub Mensik, who won the 2025 Miami Open and is a dark horse title pick here given the 20-year-old Czech's high ceiling.
Steve Bulanda (Pick 3):
Heading into this draft, my strategy was simple: use betting odds as my base "cheat sheet" and use recent U.S. Open success to look for potential longshot value.
Thanks to an auto-drafter at the second pick, men's favorite Carlos Alcaraz fell to me at pick 3. There is some risk, as he returns from a wrist injury, but he's still the favorite to repeat as champion, particularly with Jannik Sinner (knee) ruled out. With my second-round pick, I felt like I was reaching a bit for Felix Auger-Aliassime, but he's fourth in the ATP Rankings and thrives playing on hard surfaces.
I couldn't pass on Naomi Osaka, who won this event in 2018 and 2020 and made it to the semifinals last year, when she slipped to the third round. That pick started a run of four straight women's players for me, as they all simply provided better value than the men available.
Karolina Muchova is my favorite longshot pick, coming off a run to the Wimbledon final, where she pushed Linda Noskova to three sets. Muchova made it to the quarterfinals in last year's U.S. Open and feels like one of the safer bets to make it back to the quarters, if not further.
D.J. Trainor (Pick 4):
Other than drafting a balanced roster of WTA and ATP players, I didn't have much of a strategy beyond taking the best available player at each draft pick. Taking Coco Gauff at No. 4 was a no-brainer coming off her Cincinnati Open title, but then I quickly caught red, white and blue fever with consecutive American selections: Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, Frances Tiafoe and Tommy Paul. Any of those four could potentially reach the semifinals, so I aligned my rooting and fantasy interests and will hope that the home soil success from Cincinnati carries over to Flushing Meadows.
Kevin O'Brien (Pick 5):
I would admittedly say I'm a "Grand Slam" fan more than a tennis fan, so while I have heard of most players in the player pool I was not entirely up to speed heading into the draft. Fortunately I was able to lean on the Drop Shot's average draft position (ADP) feature to get by.
My favorite sleeper was Iva Jovic, whom I unfortunately auto-picked because I was scanning through all the data! Better to get her than not, at least. I was prepared to reach on a few players, but this is a sharp league and several players I would have reached on went before I could snap them up, so at the end of the day, I mostly went with players who ranked high in ADP and I had some familiarity with.
I played in several single-event draft leagues during the PGA majors this season, and it's very cool to have a full website available that allows me to keep track without entering the scores by hand in a spreadsheet.
Steve Peralta (Pick 6):
My favorite picks came on the Round 3-4 turn, when I drafted Arthur Fils and Rafael Jodar. Fils just won Cincinnati, and the last three Cincinnati Open men's champions went on to win the U.S. Open that year. Jodar is an up-and-coming player with a 31-8 record since the start of the clay-court swing.
Towards the end of the draft, I picked players that seemed to be ascending up the rankings based on their Drop Shot bios. My ninth-round pick Sara Bejlek has moved from outside the top 100 earlier this year into the top 30, per her Drop Shot player page.
