US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Ignacio Busevs
Marcos Giron
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Marcos Giron to advance · locked 2026-08-28 02:55 UTCPrediction
Giron, against the seeding and with the data's blessing. Buse wears the 32 next to his name off a fine 24–19 season, but the fine print is loud: the Peruvian's career hard-court record is 9–10, his ranking was built on clay, and his lone US Open main draw ended in the first round last year. Giron is 33 and his season is under .500, but he owns 140 career hard-court wins, plays his best tennis at home Slams, and pushed decade-younger legs to a third-set tiebreak in their only meeting — on grass, Buse's other weak surface, which the Peruvian still needed 7-6(8) in the third to take. On a quick court in New York, the American's flat pace and experience profile as the better fit. Upset pick, moderately held.
The case for Ignacio Buse
44% to winBuse is seeded because he wins matches — 24 of them this season — and at 22 his athletic ceiling simply outruns a 33-year-old's. He won the only meeting, saving the biggest points of a third-set tiebreak, and seeds get draws like this precisely so they can learn hard courts on the job. The serve that held up at Queen's holds up here.
The case for Marcos Giron
56% to winGiron has spent a decade doing exactly this: beating clay-court seeds on American hard courts with early, flat ball-striking and a first-step quickness that has aged well. His 140 career hard-court wins are fifteen times Buse's nine, the Queen's meeting was a coin-flip he nearly took, and the US Open crowd has lifted his level every year of his career.
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
Ignacio BuseMarcos GironPlayer 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
- Buse's 32nd seeding rests on a clay-built season: his career tour-level hard-court record is 9–10, the thinnest of any men's seed.
- Giron won a US Open main-draw match in each of the last several editions on his home Slam's courts — his 140 career hard-court wins lead this section.
- The only meeting, at Queen's Club in June, went to Buse 3-6 7-5 7-6(8) — three points from Giron's win.
Head to head
Buse leads 1–0 from Queen's Club this June — a grass three-setter that turned on a 10-8 finish in the deciding tiebreak. It told us the matchup is close on a fast court; it did not tell us who wins the New York version.
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. An American veteran against a seed profiles for a crowd-friendly field court. (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, where seedings meet surfaces: Buse's 32 protects him from other seeds, but not from a 33-year-old American with fifteen times his hard-court mileage and a home crowd. This is the version of a first-round upset that the numbers half-endorse before a ball is struck. The winner draws Molcan or Bonzi in a Round of 64 with no heavyweight in sight — this eighth's seed is the man who might lose right here. Sunday to Tuesday, $140,000 to the loser.
