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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Rafael Jodar vs Yunchaokete Bu — 6-2 6-1 6-1
 Yunchaokete Bu✓ | 6 | 6 | 6 |
 Rafael Jodar | 2 | 1 | 1 |
Final · Wednesday, September 2, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Jodar was never meant to face Bu at all: the 12th seed had drawn Thanasi Kokkinakis, who withdrew injured, and Bu, beaten in the final round of qualifying, took the place as a lucky loser. On Court 17, a day late after Tuesday's rain, Bu broke in the third game, broke again for 4-1 and took the opener 6-2, then broke immediately at the start of the second. He broke from 15-40 in the second game of the third and held to love for 4-1 before rain halted play for nearly two hours; Jodar restarted with an ace and was broken again. Bu closed it out in 1hr 48min for his first Grand Slam main-draw win and his first tour-level win of any kind since October 2025. Jodar, the 2024 junior champion at Flushing Meadows, finished with 15 winners against 37 unforced errors and did not earn a single break point.
Rafael JodarRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128, third day, and one of the last first-round matches on the calendar — the fifteen-day draw spreads the opening round across Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. A withdrawal rewrote this one on the morning of the match: a seeded teenager's Grand Slam debut against a 30-year-old on a protected ranking became the same debut against a lucky loser. The winner meets Marozsan or Zheng in the Round of 64.
What we know now
Court: Stadium 17
Match length: 1:48
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
What I said beforehand
The preview, frozen before the first serve. Clearly dated, never rewritten — that's the deal that makes the pick worth anything.
Jodar, and the interesting question is what the afternoon has done to him rather than who is across the net. He was drawn against Thanasi Kokkinakis, a 30-year-old on a protected ranking who has played seven matches all year; he now plays a man ranked 124th who has spent the week winning qualifying matches on these courts and lost the last of them. On form that is a downgrade for Bu and an upgrade for nobody: the Chinese has never won a main-draw match at a Grand Slam in six attempts, while Jodar has spent 2026 going from outside the top 300 to No. 13, with a title in Marrakech, a Roland Garros quarter-final on debut, a Washington final and a Montreal semi-final. What Bu does have is match play on site — three rounds of qualifying — against an opponent who has never hit a competitive ball in this main draw, on a night when the order of play has already slipped four hours and nobody knows when they are walking on. Jodar knows the courts, though: he won the boys' title on them two years ago.
The case for Rafael Jodar
84% to winJodar has had one of the great breakout seasons — No. 895 at the start of 2025, No. 13 now, and 36 wins from his first 50 tour-level matches, a mark only equalled in the Open era. He beat Alex de Minaur for a first top-ten win in Madrid, reached the last four in Montreal and the final in Washington, and made the quarter-finals at Roland Garros on debut. He is also the 2024 US Open junior champion, so this is not an unfamiliar site. Bu has never won a match in a Grand Slam main draw.
The case for Yunchaokete Bu
16% to winBu has played three matches at Flushing Meadows this week and Jodar has played none — and Jodar, at 19, has never played a US Open main-draw match at all. Bu was ranked 64th sixteen months ago, won back-to-back grass Challengers in Birmingham and Ilkley in June, and came from a set and 2-4 down to win his opening qualifying match here. He lost the final qualifying round to Federico Cina in three sets and got in anyway. A lucky loser plays with nothing at stake; a first-time seed carries the whole afternoon.
Both cases written 2026-09-01, 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.
My locked pick: Rafael Jodar to advance ✗ WRONG
“The season he is having against a man who has never won a Grand Slam main-draw match — tempered by the fact that Bu has played three matches on these courts this week and Jodar none.”
Locked 2026-09-01 22:20 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Rafael JodarYunchaokete BuPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: ATP match records, via Punto de Break and Eurosport · as of 2026-09-01.
Storylines
- Kokkinakis withdrew hours before the match with a right ankle he sprained in Cincinnati on 14 August; Bu came in as the lucky loser.
- Kokkinakis used the fifth of his nine protected-ranking entries on a match he could not start, and said he cannot use the same major twice.
- Jodar won the US Open boys' singles title on these courts in 2024, beating top seed Nicolai Budkov Kjaer in the final.
- He has gone from No. 895 at the start of 2025 to a career-high No. 13, with a maiden ATP title in Marrakech and a Roland Garros quarter-final on debut.
- Bu has played six Grand Slam main draws and has never won a match in one.
- Bu lost to Federico Cina 6-3 4-6 5-7 in the final round of qualifying, on a Court 6 whose round had been pushed back a day by weather.
Head to head
They have never met, at any level. The age gap rules out a junior meeting: Bu had turned professional before Jodar reached the ITF junior circuit.
Source: ATP match records, via Punto de Break and Eurosport · as of 2026-09-01.
Court & schedule: Stadium 17, Wednesday 2 September. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before; this one is on the board. (Official US Open order of play, as of 2026-09-02)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — was forecast at 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that could not be pushed back. The rain came in the morning and stopped before the final, which Ashe played with its roof open. It cleared from there: 15% overnight, 15% Monday, then dry and sunny. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.