US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Mattia Bellucci vs 
Zsombor Piros
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Mattia Bellucci to advance · locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTCPrediction
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.
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.
The briefing
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.
Watch: Opening-round coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, including the whip-around channel that only exists in the early rounds. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned. Days one and two of the main draw are on the board; this match falls in the back half of the first round, and the US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-08-28)
Weather: The forecast cooled since the draw: Sunday opens partly sunny near 80°F with a slight shower chance after 2 p.m., and a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms arrives with Sunday night. Monday is similar at 81°F, and the storm odds climb through Tuesday and Wednesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs; the field courts wait. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-28)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
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.
