US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Alexander Blockx vs 
Tomas Barrios Vera
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Alexander Blockx to advance · locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTCPrediction
Blockx is 21, seeded 28th, ranked 32nd and 22–14 on the season — and playing the first US Open main-draw match of his career. Barrios Vera is a 28-year-old qualifier ranked 144th, 11–12 this year, also making his US Open main-draw debut. Two players discovering this tournament at once, one of them 112 places better. Blockx's career hard record (20–22) is thin because he is young, not because he is bad; the hard-court Elo gap is 268 points. Straight sets unless the occasion bites.
The case for Alexander Blockx
84% to winSeeded 28th at 21 with a 22–14 season, against a qualifier ranked 144th. The Elo gap on hard courts is one of the largest in the round, and Blockx is the better mover, the better server and the more improving player by a distance.
The case for Tomas Barrios Vera
16% to winBarrios Vera has three matches of court time on the site this week; Blockx has none, and is playing the first US Open main-draw match of his life as a seed — which carries an expectation a qualifier does not have. At 28 he is the calmer man on a big first-round court.
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
Alexander BlockxTomas Barrios VeraPlayer 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
- Both men are playing their first US Open main-draw match — one as the 28th seed, one as a qualifier.
- Blockx is 21 and 22–14 on the season, his first year seeded at a major.
- A 268-point hard-court Elo gap, among the largest of any first-round match without a top-10 seed.
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 Shang or Trungelliti in the Round of 64.
