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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Rafael Jodarvs
Thanasi Kokkinakis
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
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My pick: Rafael Jodar to advance · locked 2026-08-28 02:35 UTCPrediction
Jodar. The 19-year-old Spaniard is the youngest seed in the men's draw and the season's steepest riser — 43–14 across 2026, a ranking that has climbed to No. 13, and the sort of first-strike baseline game that translates to New York without adjustment. Kokkinakis is the more dangerous floor-level opponent than No. 412 suggests: the ranking is injury wreckage, not ability, and his serve on a quick court keeps any match tight. But he has won two matches all season, and the physical question that has followed him for a decade is exactly the question best-of-five asks. Jodar in four is the shape I expect; Jodar in straights would surprise nobody who watched his summer.
The case for Rafael Jodar
76% to winJodar has spent the season making the case himself: 43 wins, a seeding at his first US Open, and a game with no obvious donation — big serve, flat drive off both wings, and the fearlessness of a teenager who has not yet learned what pressure is supposed to feel like. Kokkinakis has played seven matches all year; Jodar has played fifty-seven. Match sharpness is the whole ballgame in round one.
The case for Thanasi Kokkinakis
24% to winWhen Kokkinakis is healthy enough to swing, the serve is still top-20 caliber and the forehand still ends points — his 118 career tour-level hard-court wins say the level is real even when the ranking is not. A teenager at his first US Open, seeded, expected to win: that is the exact situation in which a free-swinging veteran with nothing to lose does his best work.
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
Rafael JodarThanasi KokkinakisPlayer 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
- Jodar, 19, is the youngest seed in the men's draw and is making his US Open debut ranked No. 13 after a 43-win season.
- Kokkinakis, ranked No. 412 after another injury-broken year, has more career hard-court wins (118) than any player ranked outside the top 300 in this draw.
- Spain has a seed at each end of this half's story: Jodar the newest, and defending champion Carlos Alcaraz — whom Jodar could not meet before the final.
Head to head
Never met — Kokkinakis's decade on tour and Jodar's single breakout season have not yet crossed. The eleven-year age gap is among the largest in any men's first-rounder this year.
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. A debutant seed with Jodar's momentum tends to draw a show-adjacent 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, and the tournament's first look at its youngest men's seed. Jodar's 2026 has been the men's tour's fastest climb, and New York is where breakout seasons either get their Slam chapter or their first hard lesson — Kokkinakis, a decade his senior with a top-20 serve on his good days, is a sterner opener than No. 412 reads. The winner faces Marozsán or Zheng in the Round of 64, in a section that stays seed-light until the second week. Men's openers run Sunday to Tuesday; $140,000 to the fallen.
