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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Mattia Bellucci vs Zsombor Piros — 6-4 6-2 6-0
 Mattia Bellucci✓ | 6 | 6 | 6 |
 Zsombor Piros | 4 | 2 | 0 |
Final · Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Court 10 sat under rain for the best part of four hours, and when Bellucci finally walked on in mid-afternoon the match lasted a set. That one was close — a single break, in the fifth game, and a serve-out from 40-0 that needed two set points — and then the gap opened. Piros earned the first break point of his afternoon in the second game of the second set, saw it erased, and was immediately taken to 0-40 himself; from 2-1 down he won one more game. The third set was a rout inside twenty minutes: three break points in the opening game, eight points in a row to 2-0, a double break, and 6-0 on the first match point. Piros, a qualifier in his second Grand Slam main draw and the junior world No. 3 of 2017, had been visibly labouring in the closing games of his last qualifying match, which ended when Christopher O'Connell retired. Bellucci won 98 points to 63 and next plays Taylor Fritz.
Mattia BellucciRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 128 is the widest the net ever gets: 64 matches a draw, spread across three days, every seed in action and every qualifier playing the biggest match of the year. This half of the bracket filled in late — qualifying ran a day long after rain pushed the last round to Friday, so these names were still blank slots on draw night. First-round losers leave with $140,000. The winner draws Fritz or Blanch in the Round of 64.
What we know now
What I said beforehand
The preview, frozen before the first serve. Clearly dated, never rewritten — that's the deal that makes the pick worth anything.
Bellucci is 96th and left-handed, 15–18 this season with a 41–40 hard record; Piros is a 118th-ranked qualifier who is 2–6 on the year. The form gap is the story: Piros has barely won a tour-level match in 2026 and got here through three rounds of qualifying, which is both an argument for him (rhythm) and against him (a fourth match in six days against a lefty). Bellucci's second round here last year is the deeper US Open credential. Bellucci in four.
The case for Mattia Bellucci
58% to winLeft-handed, 22 places higher, and 15–18 on the season against a man who is 2–6. Bellucci also reached the second round here in 2025, so he knows the courts, and his 41–40 career hard record is a genuine winning one — rare in this half of the draw.
The case for Zsombor Piros
42% to winPiros has three competitive wins on these courts this week, which Bellucci does not, and a 17–19 career hard record is not far off his opponent's on a per-match basis. A 2–6 season is small-sample noise as much as decline; qualifying suggests the level is there.
Both cases written 2026-08-29, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
My locked pick: Mattia Bellucci to advance ✓ RIGHT
“A left-hander 15–18 on the season against a qualifier who is 2–6 at tour level in 2026.”
Locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Mattia BellucciZsombor PirosPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Storylines
- Piros is 2–6 at tour level this season — and won three matches in four days to qualify here.
- Bellucci is one of the few left-handers in this section of the draw.
- Both men lost in the first round of this tournament's main draw last year; one of them breaks the pattern.
Head to head
They have never met.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Court & schedule: Court 10, Tuesday 1 September. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before; this one is on the board. (Official US Open order of play, as of 2026-08-30)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — was forecast at 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that could not be pushed back. The rain came in the morning and stopped before the final, which Ashe played with its roof open. It cleared from there: 15% overnight, 15% Monday, then dry and sunny. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.