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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Camilo Ugo Carabellivs
Jan-Lennard Struff
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
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My pick: Jan-Lennard Struff to advance · locked 2026-08-28 03:15 UTCPrediction
Struff. At 36 the German is the oldest man in this section, but the profile still fits the court: a serve-first, flat-hitting game with 175 career tour-level hard-court wins, and a fourth-round run HERE just last year that says the machinery works in New York conditions. Ugo Carabelli is nine years younger and ranked 32 places lower with a hard-court card that reads 10–27 — an Argentine clay specialist in the wrong hemisphere. Both are under .500 this season, so nobody arrives in form; the difference is that Struff's off-year still runs through big-serve tennis that translates here, while Ugo Carabelli's runs through rallies this surface shortens. First meeting. Struff in four.
The case for Camilo Ugo Carabelli
27% to winUgo Carabelli's case is age and legs: Struff is 36, playing a best-of-five in late-summer heat, and the Argentine's game is built to extend points and matches. A 17–19 season means the German is beatable by anyone who makes him play long — and nobody makes opponents play longer than a Buenos Aires baseliner with nothing to lose.
The case for Jan-Lennard Struff
73% to winStruff made the second week of this tournament twelve months ago and his serve remains among the heaviest in the draw — on a quick court that is a permanent, rally-proof advantage. His 175 hard-court wins against the Argentine's ten frame the surface gap; even a diminished Struff has spent two decades winning exactly this match.
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
Camilo Ugo CarabelliJan-Lennard StruffPlayer 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
- Struff's fourth round here in 2025 — at 35 — was the oldest second-week US Open run by a German man in decades of this event.
- Ugo Carabelli's career hard-court record is 10–27; more than four-fifths of his tour-level wins have come on clay.
- First career meeting, despite eleven combined seasons on tour — the surface split kept their calendars apart.
Head to head
Never met — Struff's hard-and-grass calendar and Ugo Carabelli's clay one have simply never intersected. The style question (heavy serve against heavy topspin) gets its first answer on Sunday.
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 in the veterans' wing: Struff at 36 chasing one more New York second week, a year after proving he still had one in him. The pathway repeats last year's shape — win the openers his serve is supposed to win, then measure himself against a seed. Here that seed would be Francisco Cerúndolo or, plausibly, a rested Fritz in the Round of 32. Ugo Carabelli is the kind of first hurdle that looks low and plays slow. Sixty-four men's openers, Sunday through Tuesday.
