Lleyton Hewitt defeated Pete Sampras in the final, 7–6(7–4), 6–1, 6–1 to win the men's singles tennis title at the 2001 US Open. It was his first major singles title.
Marat Safin was the defending champion, but lost in the semifinals to Sampras in a rematch of the previous year's final.
This was the last major appearance of former world No. 1 and two-time US Open champion Pat Rafter; he lost in the fourth round to Sampras. This was the first major main draw appearance of future Tour Finals champion David Nalbandian.
The high-profile quarterfinal match between Sampras and Andre Agassi was an all-time classic, and saw Sampras and Agassi each hold serve in every one of their 24 service games apiece. The match had no breaks of serve, and ended with Sampras winning 6–7(7–9), 7–6(7–2), 7–6(7–2), 7–6(7–5).
This was the first time the US Open used 32 seeds instead of 16, in order to better spread out the higher ranked players.
The seeded players are listed below. Lleyton Hewitt is the champion; others show the round in which they were eliminated.
Gustavo Kuerten (quarterfinals)
Andre Agassi (quarterfinals)
Marat Safin (semifinals).svg/1280px-Flag_of_Australia_(converted).svg.png){kind=small}
Lleyton Hewitt (champion)
Juan Carlos Ferrero (third round) Pat Rafter (fourth round) Yevgeny Kafelnikov (semifinals)
Sébastien Grosjean (first round)
Tim Henman (third round) Pete Sampras (finalist) Àlex Corretja (third round) Arnaud Clément (fourth round).svg/1280px-Flag_of_Switzerland_(Pantone).svg.png){kind=small}
Roger Federer (fourth round)
Thomas Johansson (fourth round)
Goran Ivanišević (third round)
Tommy Haas (fourth round) Carlos Moyá (third round) Andy Roddick (quarterfinals) Thomas Enqvist (first round) Jan-Michael Gambill (second round) Fabrice Santoro (second round)
Andrei Pavel (second round)
Dominik Hrbatý (second round)
Sjeng Schalken (third round) Albert Portas (third round)
Nicolás Lapentti (third round)
Guillermo Cañas (second round)
Hicham Arazi (third round) Nicolas Kiefer (first round) Greg Rusedski (third round) Nicolas Escudé (second round) Todd Martin (second round)