Defending U.S. Open champ Alcaraz returns as a favourite of the fans, but not of the oddsmakers

Carlos Alcaraz wishes he could go a little more unnoticed as he tries to move around the home of the U.S. Open.

That's not possible, of course. New York is the last place to find quiet when you're the star of the show, and even at just 20 years old, it appears the Spaniard is already that in tennis.

He may not be the favourite of the oddsmakers despite being the defending champion — Novak Djokovic is back, after all — but he certainly seems to be a popular choice among fans.

They will have to wait one more day to watch him. Alcaraz isn't on the schedule Monday for the first day of play, when top-ranked Iga Swiatek opens her title defence in the afternoon and both 19-year-old Coco Gauff and Djokovic play at night.

Alcaraz is scheduled to play Dominik Koepfer on Tuesday night, providing an extra day to set aside the distractions and hype that were already starting even before he won the title last year and have snowballed since.

"Well, my life changed a lot, a lot," Alcaraz said this week with a smile. "Probably it's a different life, talking about the way that I'm more, let's say, famous. A lot of people are starting to know my name after the U.S. Open last year, for example."

His victory over Casper Ruud made Alcaraz the first teenager to win the U.S. Open men's title since Pete Sampras in 1990. Sampras, though, didn't immediately shoot to stardom, not with John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors still around and Andre Agassi having already burst onto the scene.

But with Roger Federer retired and countryman Rafael Nadal sidelined since January because of injuries, Alcaraz has quickly picked up many of their fans along with his own, a fact he quickly discovered when he returned to New York and noticed how many people recognized