Emma Raducanu is the most recent of four unseeded players who have won the US Open.
Raducanu won the 2021 US Open in the most unlikely of ways, becoming the first and only qualifier to win a Grand Slam title.
The then 18-year-old did so without dropping a single set, with Raducanu etching her name into tennis history by doing so.
Despite it being an incredibly rare achievement, three other players had actually done it before Raducanu.
The four unseeded players who have won the US Open title
Andre Agassi (1994)
Andre Agassi was actually the first unseeded player to win the US Open in 1994.
The American had already won a Grand Slam title at Wimbledon in 1992, but both injuries and loss of form caused Agassi to drop down the rankings.
Agassi was still the world number 20 heading into the 1994 US Open, but this was at the time when there were only 16 seeds at Grand Slams.
Showcasing his true potential, Agassi would beat the likes of Michael Chang and Thomas Muster en route to his first US Open final since 1990.
Agassi lost the 1990 US Open final, but he made sure that the same was not going to happen again after beating Michael Stich 6-1, 7-6(5), 7-5 to become the first unseeded champion at the New York major.
Kim Clijsters (2009)
It was another 15 years until another unseeded player won the US Open, with Kim Clijsters becoming the first woman to do so in 2009.
Clijsters had already won the US Open in 2005, but two years later she announced that she would be retiring from tennis at just 23 years old.
The Belgian then made a U-turn on this decision in 2009, with Clijsters making her professional comeback for the US Open hard court swing.
Clijsters required a wildcard to get into the Cincinnati Open, Canadian Open and the US Open, and she certainly took advantage of the latter.
After beating the likes of Serena and Venus Williams, Clijsters was back in a Grand Slam final for the first time in four years.
Clijsters would then beat Caroline Wozniacki 7-5, 6-3 to claim her second Grand Slam and US Open title.
Not only was she an unseeded champion, but Clijsters is also the only unranked Grand Slam winner, as players were required to play at least three tournaments to have a ranking.
Sloane Stephens (2017)
Sloane Stephens is the third unseeded US Open champion, with the American entering her home Grand Slam after being kept out of action for nearly a year due to a stress fracture in her left foot.
Stephens found form almost immediately into her comeback, having reached the quarter-finals of the Canadian Open and the semi-finals of the Cincinnati Open.
However, she was still not expected to do what she did at the US Open, a tournament Stephens had never been past the fourth round of before.
Stephens, who was the world number 83 at the time, proved any doubters wrong and beat both Venus Williams and Ash Barty en route to her first Grand Slam final.
This is where Stephens would face fellow American Madison Keys, who she would comfortably beat 6-3, 6-0 to become both the third unseeded US Open champion and only player to use a protected ranking and win a major title.
Emma Raducanu (2021)
As previously mentioned, Raducanu is the most recent unseeded player to win the US Open title.
Raducanu had enjoyed a breakthrough run at Wimbledon in 2021, which enabled her to climb up the rankings to even be able to play in qualifying.
The then world number 150 went on to dominate the competition, with Raducanu winning 10 consecutive matches to claim the US Open title.
Raducanu played a fellow unseeded player and teenager in Leylah Fernandez in the final, who she beat 6-4, 6-3 to become the first and only qualifier to win a Grand Slam.
Who is the most shocking Grand Slam champion ever?
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How many unseeded champions have there been at the other Grand Slams?
The US Open has produced four unseeded champions, which is more than both the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
Serena Williams is the most recent unseeded player to win the Australian Open, while Marketa Vondrousova became the first woman to win Wimbledon as an unseeded player in 2023.
| Grand Slam | Number of unseeded champions in the Open Era |
| Australian Open | 3 (Mark Edmondson – 1976, Chris O’Neil – 1978, Serena Williams – 2007) |
| Roland Garros | 6 (Mats Wilander – 1982, Gustavo Kuerten – 1997, Gaston Gaudio – 2004, Jelena Ostapenko – 2017, Iga Swiatek – 2020, Barbora Krejcikova – 2021) |
| Wimbledon | 3 (Boris Becker – 1985, Goran Ivanisevic 2001, Marketa Vondrousova – 2023) |
| US Open | 4 (Andre Agassi – 1994, Kim Clijsters – 2009, Sloane Stephens – 2017, Emma Raducanu – 2017) |
The only Grand Slam which has seen more unseeded champions than the US Open is Roland Garros, where there have been six unseeded winners.
Mats Wilander, Gustavo Kuerten and Gaston Gaudio all won Roland Garros as unseeded players, but in more recent years it has been unseeded WTA players who have won the clay court major.
This started with Jelena Ostapenko in 2017, with Iga Swiatek and Barbora Krejcikova joining this list since then.
The 2026 US Open is just under a month from getting underway, with the potential for two more unseeded champions in both the men’s and women’s singles draws.
