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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Felix Auger-Aliassimevs
Rinky Hijikata
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Felix Auger-Aliassime to advance · locked 2026-08-28 02:55 UTCPrediction
Auger-Aliassime, with respect paid to the scrap in front of him. The third seed is the highest-ranked man in the bottom half's upper quarter and he arrives off the best New York result of his career — a semi-final twelve months ago — with 32 wins on the season. Hijikata is precisely the kind of opponent who makes seeds sweat without usually beating them: a 4R run here in 2023, a 27–21 season, and a returner's game that feeds on tentative serving. Nothing about Auger-Aliassime's serving is tentative. First meeting; the Canadian's serve-plus-one against Hijikata's counterpunching is a stylistic mismatch at this pace, and five sets stretch it wider.
The case for Felix Auger-Aliassime
82% to winThird seed, reigning semi-finalist at this tournament, and the biggest serve in the section: Auger-Aliassime's floor in New York has become as high as anyone's outside the big two. His 215 career hard-court wins dwarf the field around him, and Sinner's absence makes his quarter of the draw the most open real estate he has ever been seeded into.
The case for Rinky Hijikata
18% to winHijikata has been to the second week here before — fourth round in 2023 — and his return game is the best single skill on either side of the net after the Canadian's serve. Seeds carrying semi-final points to defend carry scoreboard pressure from the first game; a 27-win season says the Australian is playing well enough to apply it if the first set gets tight.
Both cases written 2026-08-28, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine, quoted to a decimal because false precision is funnier — and tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Felix Auger-AliassimeRinky HijikataPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-27.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
The briefing
Storylines
- Auger-Aliassime's semi-final here last year is the result that vaulted him back into the top five — he opens this campaign as the tournament's No. 3 seed.
- With Sinner withdrawn, Auger-Aliassime is the highest seed in his quarter — the draw has never been this open for him at a major.
- Hijikata's fourth round in 2023 came from qualifying-adjacent obscurity; he arrives this time as a direct entrant with a winning season.
Head to head
Never met — slightly surprising given both have lived on hard courts for years. Serve against return, in the purest form this section offers.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Watch: Opening-round coverage starts Sunday at 11 a.m. ET across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, including a whip-around channel for the early rounds. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned — the US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before, so day-one courts land the night of 29 August. A No. 3 seed's opener is a strong bet for Arthur Ashe or Louis Armstrong. (US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-08-27)
Weather: The opening window looks kind: mostly sunny and 85–86°F Sunday and Monday, with thunderstorm chances only creeping in on Tuesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs if the sky turns; the field courts wait it out. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-27)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
Round of 128, and the first appearance of a genuine title contender in this preview set: Auger-Aliassime returns to the site of last year's semi-final as the No. 3 seed in a draw whose top line lost Jannik Sinner to injury. The math of Slam runs starts in rounds like this — semi-finalists who repeat are the ones who spend no energy in week one. Hijikata, a 2023 second-weeker himself, is a sterner opener than most seeds get. The winner faces Burruchaga or Khachanov; play runs Sunday to Tuesday.
