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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Daniil Medvedev vs 
Hugo Gaston
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Daniil Medvedev to advance · locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTCPrediction
Medvedev is the seventh seed, the 2021 champion on this court, 33–15 this season and 364–131 on hard courts for his career — the best hard record in the draw outside the top two seeds. Gaston is a 25-year-old left-handed qualifier ranked 88th whose game is drop shots, angles and irritation, which is a real style problem for some players and precisely the wrong one to bring against a man who stands ten feet behind the baseline and retrieves for a living. Ashe, Sunday afternoon; Medvedev in three, possibly grumbling.
The case for Daniil Medvedev
87% to winChampion here in 2021, 364–131 on hard courts, 33–15 this season, and he beat Gaston the only time they met (Paris 2021, 7-6(7) 6-4). Gaston's junk-ball game needs an opponent who dislikes being pulled forward; Medvedev's court coverage is the counter.
The case for Hugo Gaston
13% to winGaston is left-handed and plays a style nobody practises against — drop shots, slice, changes of pace — and he has three qualifying wins on these courts this week. Medvedev at 30 has had stretches where patience turns into frustration; a big first-court crowd enjoying a qualifier's tricks is exactly the setting where that has happened before.
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
Player 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
- Medvedev won this title in 2021, beating Novak Djokovic in the final to deny the calendar Slam.
- Gaston qualified and gets Arthur Ashe Stadium for the reward — Sunday's opening day.
- Medvedev's 364–131 career hard-court record is the deepest in the bottom half of the men's draw.
Head to head
One meeting: Paris Masters quarter-finals, 2021, Medvedev 7-6(7) 6-4 on hard.
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: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Sunday 30 August. 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 2026-08-28)
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 Gorzny or Collignon in the Round of 64.
