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SO much tennis going on this week – Including the start of the qualifying at the final Grand Slam tournament of the year.

It starts Monday with a mix of the top and bottom halfs.

There are two Canadians: Rebecca Marino and Marina Stakusic, both unseeded. But neither is in action on Monday.

The draw is here.

Here is Monday’s order of play for the women.

US Open Qualifying – Day 1 women’s OOP

The last one into the women’s qualifying (so far, anyway) is No. 232 Ena Shibahara of Japan.

Canadian Katherine Sebov, who has made the qualifying at a number of majors the last few years (and even made it through to the main draw in Australia) was too far down to be close.

The tough seat is Nao Hibino, who was ranked No. 100 at the entry deadline six weeks ago but finds herself next in, but in the qualifying.

But with her ranking down to No. 148 this week, she’s unseeded in the qualifying draw. If no one pulls out in the next hour, she’s out of luck.

On the comeback trail

As every year, there are number of interesting players in the qualifying who are either down on their luck, coming back from injury, or just popping up when you’d almost forgotten about them.

There tend to be a few players using a protected ranking who may or may not be ready to return. But even first-round loser’s money in qualifying is pretty good money.

Among the ones to look out for on that front is former top-20 player Ana Konjuh, in a protected ranking of No. 156.

***Konjuh in qualifying at the 2021 US Open – during another of her myriad injury comebacks.***

She has no current ranking, and has earned just over $1,000 this year as she enters what feels like the 10th comeback of her career, at age 26.

Konjuh didn’t play from Wimbledon last July through to March of this year. She played three tournaments, but has been out since April again.

And then there is 38-year-old Varvara Lepchenko, who plays Tamara Zidansek in the first round.

Lepchenko, who has been an Olympian and a BJK Cup player for her adopted country (she is Uzbekistan-born) hit the top 20 back in 2012, and is currently at No. 178.This will be her 24th tournament of the season. She’s played in Romania, Italy, Great Britain, Spain, the U.S., Portugal, Colombia, the Dominican Republic and Mexico in 2024 and got her ranking up from a year-end No. 318 in 2023.

This is her first trip to the US Open since she got into the main draw as a lucky loser in 2019, and lost in the first round to Peng Shuai. Just to give you an idea. She made the third round in 2016 (beating Peng and Timea Bacsinsky before losing to … Konjuh. Full circle.

***Lepchenko at the US Open a decade ago, in 2014.***

In between, there was a short ban for a positive meldonium test around the same time Maria Sharapova was first out. She was found to be “not at fault” in that case, and only missed a few months.

And in March, 2022, she was given a four-year doping suspension for a banned stimulant, backdated to Aug. 2021. She had Howard Jacobs (who has been the go-to guy in this space) as her attorney and was able to get that reduced to 21 months at the Court of Arbitration for sport a year later.

Eligible to return in May, she came back in July, 2023 with her ranking outside the top 1000. So it’s been impressive work – especially for someone her age.

Look out for Parks

Also look for Alycia Parks, who had a great result on hard courts last month but has had a terrible season overall. She’s down to No. 116 from a high ranking of No. 40 exactly a year ago. She has the draw to make it to the main draw. She can also oust herself in the first round against the fairly unknown Leylre Romero Gormaz of Spain.

***Alycia Parks practicing with Venus Williams at the 2022 US Open.***

Parks won two WTA 125 tournaments this year, including one on Warsaw less than a month ago, and qualified for Wimbledon.

Fruhvirtova v Mladenovic

Another “down on their luck” pairing is 19-year-old Linda Fruhvirtova and 31-year-old Kristina Mladenovic. They meed Monday.

Fruhvirtova rose quickly from the juniors, getting inside the top 50 just over a year ago

She’s already played 22 tournaments in 2024, and is below .500 on the year at 19-22. And she retired in her first-round match two weeks ago in Landisville.

She was at No. 88 going into 2024, and now is down at No. 141 while her younger sister Brenda is straight into main draws at majors and inside the top 100.

Mladenovic, who has 28 doubles titles and has been No. 1, hit the top 10 in singles in Oct. 2017.

Since then, it’s been ride. A year ago at the US Open we watched while her once-powerful first serve was reduced to a series of hitches and double-faults. She still had her entire family travelling with her, despite the fact that she lost 6-2, 6-2 to Elena-Gabriela Ruse in the first round and only earned $22,000.

Mladenovic, too, has played a lot of tournaments this year, and is 10-21 on the year in singles.

She lost in the first round of qualifying in Toronto last week to alternate Carol Zhao, ranked No. 281.

But with all those tournaments, she has managed to raise her singles ranking just 20 spots, which at that level of the rankings is almost nothing. She was at No. 282 in March.

Shibahara squeezes in

Look out for Japanese-American Ena Shibahara, who has been on quest to see what she can do in singles this year.

Shibahara, 26, made the WTA FInals last year in doubles with Olympic partner Shuko Aoyama. But perhaps because she made some nice money in 2023, she didn’t want to leave any “what-ifs” on the table.

***Shibahara playing doubles in Rome in 2023. She has dedicated 2024 to seeing how far she can get in singles – and she made the cut in NY.***

After Cancun she played more tournaments in Japan at the $100K level, through December, with her ranking outside the top 550. and has gone from No. 548 to No. 235 this year – enough to get her into the first round of qualifying against Katarina Zavatska.

She was 12 out at the entry deadline, but made it just in time. It’s her Grand Slam singles debut.

Penickova v Arconada

The youngest player in the draw, 14-year-old Kristina Penickova, got a wild card and will face 25-year-old Usue Maitane Arconada.

***Arconada at the US Open juniors in 2016. She was up 7-5 and serving for the match at 5-2 against Bianca Andreescu – and lost.***

Arconada was once Penickova, in a sense. Nearly a decade ago she was at a career high No. 5 in the ITF juniors and a rival of Bianca Andreescu’s; she defeated the Canadian in the third round of junior Wimbledon in 2016 – after beating some scrube called … Iga Swiatek in the first round. And then she lost to her in the third round of the junior US Open a few months later. Earlier that year she beat Amanda Anisimova (who was a genuine junior phenom) in the firal of a big junior event in Brazil on clay.

She got her US Open qualifying wild cards in 2015 and 2016, but she was 16 and 17 at the time. It’s her first time back at the US Open since 2021.

The Buenos Aires-born Arconada is on a protected ranking of No. 173; she was out from June 2023 until March of this year, and has played 11 tournaments since, the majority on wild cards and on her protected ranking at ITFs in the U.S. Her career high of No. 116 came back in 2019; she’s currently at No. 834.

***The Penickova twins at a junior event in Indian Wells in 2023.***

Penickova is No. 12 in the juniors rankings at 14, which is something. She made the semifinals at junior Roland Garros this spring, and has a twin, Annika, who is at No. 88 in the junior rankings. Here’s a piece on them when they were eight, and already being home-schooled.

Penickova has played four pro events but after qualifying in the first one, a $15K last November and winning a round, she’s gone out in the first round in the last three.