US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Francisco Cerundolovs
Filip Misolic
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Francisco Cerundolo to advance · locked 2026-08-28 03:15 UTCPrediction
Cerúndolo, and it should be quick. The 24th seed has won both career meetings without dropping a set — including a straight-sets hard-court win in Vienna — and arrives with a 28–16 season against Misolic's 1–3. The Austrian is ranked No. 530, playing his first US Open, and his tour-level results this year are close to a blank page. Cerúndolo's game has its known wobble — the forehand misfires in patches, and his 2R ceiling here says New York hasn't loved him — but a first-round draw like this is precisely how a seed books a low-stress start. Straight sets, with one competitive stretch somewhere in the middle.
The case for Francisco Cerundolo
87% to winTwo meetings, six sets, zero dropped: Cerúndolo has already answered this question twice, once on this surface. His 28-win season is among the best in this quarter's supporting cast, and the draw has handed him the lowest-ranked direct opponent any seed received. Professional efficiency is the entire assignment.
The case for Filip Misolic
13% to winMisolic has played Cerúndolo close to even for stretches before — the Roland-Garros meeting had a 7-6(2) second set — and a seed whose US Open history is two early exits carries his own New York doubts onto the court. At No. 530 with nothing at stake, the Austrian's flat backhand can keep rallies honest; every game he holds early compounds the seed's known fragility.
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
Francisco CerundoloFilip MisolicPlayer 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
- Cerúndolo has won both career meetings without losing a set — Vienna 2022 on hard, Roland-Garros 2024 in a rout.
- Misolic, ranked No. 530, is the lowest-ranked man in the field's resolved matchups and is making his US Open debut.
- Cerúndolo has never passed the second round here in his career — the softest possible opener is his chance to fix the anomaly in his otherwise top-25 résumé.
Head to head
Cerúndolo leads 2–0 and has not dropped a set: 6-3 6-3 in Vienna on hard in 2022, then 6-2 7-6(2) 6-0 at Roland-Garros in 2024. Misolic's competitive window has been one tiebreak wide.
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: the round where seeds are graded on efficiency, and Cerúndolo's assignment is the clearest on the card — a 2–0 head-to-head over the world No. 530. The context worth carrying: he has never made the second week here, his section funnels toward ninth-seeded Taylor Fritz, and 28 wins this season say his level is better than his New York history. Openers run Sunday through Tuesday; the loser's check reads $140,000.
