US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Roman Andres BurruchagavsKaren Khachanov
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Karen Khachanov to advance · locked 2026-08-28 02:55 UTCPrediction
Khachanov. The veteran's 2026 has been mediocre by his standards (16–18), but the floor of a former US Open semi-finalist with 217 career hard-court wins remains far above Burruchaga's current ceiling on this surface — the Argentine has five tour-level hard-court wins and built his No. 59 ranking almost entirely on clay. They met once, on Burruchaga's preferred dirt in Rome last year, and Khachanov still won in three. New York's pace favors his flat, heavy hitting more than any other Slam surface, and a first US Open main draw is a lot to absorb against a man with a decade of big-stadium matches behind him. Khachanov in four at the generous end.
The case for Roman Andres Burruchaga
21% to winBurruchaga pushed Khachanov to a deciding set in their only meeting, and the veteran's .500 season is an invitation: players in form-droughts lose exactly these matches when the younger man makes them run. At 24, with a rising ranking and zero expectations on a court nobody expects him to like, he swings free while Khachanov carries all the obligation.
The case for Karen Khachanov
79% to winKhachanov's résumé at this tournament — a 2022 semi-final — and on this surface (217 hard-court wins to five) makes this the widest surface-experience mismatch in the round. He won the only prior meeting on the opponent's best surface; on his own best one, the calculation gets simpler, not harder.
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
Roman Andres BurruchagaKaren KhachanovPlayer 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
- Khachanov's 2022 semi-final here is the deepest US Open run in this section of the draw — and he opens against a man playing his first US Open main-draw match.
- The only previous meeting came on Burruchaga's surface — clay in Rome, 2025 — and Khachanov won it in three sets.
- Burruchaga has five career tour-level hard-court wins; every other man in this eighth has at least ten times his surface mileage.
Head to head
Khachanov leads 1–0 from Rome 2025 — on clay, Burruchaga's home surface, and it still took a 6-1 third set to close it. Sunday moves the contest to the surface where Khachanov has spent his career.
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. This one profiles as a field-court match. (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 with a clear subtext: the winner almost certainly gets third-seeded Félix Auger-Aliassime in the Round of 64. For Khachanov, that is a rematch of pedigrees — two former New York semi-finalists a round apart; for Burruchaga, it would be the biggest match of his life twice over. First he has to solve a surface that has never loved him, against a man built by it. Sixty-four men's openers run Sunday through Tuesday; the loser's consolation is $140,000.
