US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Grigor Dimitrov vs 
Alexei Popyrin
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Grigor Dimitrov to advance · locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTCPrediction
Two men ranked outside the top 125 who have both been considerably better than that, meeting in a first round that would have been a third-week match five years ago. Dimitrov had to qualify to get here — at 35, ranked 137, 8–13 on the season — but the hard-court ledger behind him is 340–208 and he made the semi-finals on this court in 2019. Popyrin is 130th and 11–19, with a 119–123 hard record and a fourth round here in 2024. The head-to-head is 2–2 and every meeting was on hard. Three qualifying wins is real match play, and that is the thumb on the scale: Dimitrov in four, with at least one set decided by a tiebreak he has no business winning at this point and wins anyway.
The case for Grigor Dimitrov
57% to winHe arrives with three matches already played and won this week, which at 35 matters more than it used to. The career hard-court record (340–208) is the deepest on the court by a distance, and a 2019 semi-final here says the venue suits the game. He beat Popyrin in straight sets the last time they met on a hard court that mattered — Shanghai 2024, 7-6(5) 6-2.
The case for Alexei Popyrin
43% to winPopyrin is eight years younger, seeded nowhere but ranked seven places higher, and the one time these two met at this tournament he won it — the 2021 second round, 7-6(4) 7-6(4) 4-0 before Dimitrov retired. A first-strike server against a 35-year-old playing his fourth match in six days is a fair bet in the fourth set, and Popyrin's 11–19 season means he has nothing invested in protecting a ranking.
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
Grigor DimitrovAlexei PopyrinPlayer 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
- Dimitrov is here through qualifying for the first time in his career — ranked 137 at 35, a decade after he was world No. 3.
- Their last meeting at this tournament ended in a Dimitrov retirement: the 2021 second round, Popyrin leading 7-6(4) 7-6(4) 4-0.
- Dimitrov's 2019 run to the semi-finals here remains his deepest at any major; Popyrin's fourth round in 2024 is his.
Head to head
Four meetings, all on hard, split 2–2. Dimitrov took Shanghai 2024 7-6(5) 6-2 and Melbourne 2021 in three; Popyrin took Toronto 2024 in three and was two sets up here in 2021 when Dimitrov retired.
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 Hanfmann or Tabilo in the Round of 64.
