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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Alex Molcan vs Benjamin Bonzi — 6-4 3-6 6-3 6-2
 Benjamin Bonzi✓ | 6 | 3 | 6 | 6 |
 Alex Molcan | 4 | 6 | 3 | 2 |
Final · Wednesday, September 2, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Rain stopped this one on Court 13 on Tuesday after three games, with Molcan 2-1 up, and it resumed on Wednesday evening. The break did the Slovak no favours: Bonzi took three games in a row on the restart and the first set 6-4, his first serve doing most of the work. Molcan found an answer in the second, breaking in the fourth game, consolidating and levelling 6-3. From there Bonzi took over at the net, broke twice for 5-1 in the third, and led 5-0 in the fourth before Molcan salvaged two games; the Frenchman closed it out 6-2 on a second match point after 2hr 23min. Bonzi hit 14 aces to three and 38 winners to 20. It was a first meeting, and Bonzi's first Grand Slam win of the season after opening-round exits in Melbourne, Paris and London — and he was only in the draw because Emilio Nava withdrew. Molcan, the only Slovak in the singles draws, was playing the US Open for the first time since 2023.
Alex MolcanRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128 between two men the seedings ignored and the section will not: the winner gets Giron or 32nd-seeded Buse in the Round of 64, which is as gentle as second-round assignments come in a Slam. Molcan's revival season and Bonzi's even-keel year meet at the exact point where one of them becomes a nice story for another 48 hours. All 64 men's first-rounders play Sunday through Tuesday, mostly under sun.
What we know now
Court: Court 13
Match length: 2:23
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.
Molcan, by the thinnest data margin of the day. The profiles nearly mirror: two tour regulars around thirty, rankings 25 places apart, career hard-court records within a game of .500, and both with a US Open third round as their high-water mark here. What separates them is the season — Molcan is 20–9, the best sustained stretch of his career since his 2022 surge, while Bonzi sits at 15–15 — and the left-handed serve, which travels better to New York than any other piece of either man's game. Bonzi's third round here was last year, so the court suits him fine; recency of form is the tiebreaker, and it belongs to the Slovak.
The case for Alex Molcan
55% to winA 20–9 season does not happen by accident at 28 — Molcan has rebuilt the consistency that once carried him into the top 40, and his lefty serve out wide is the one shot in this match that creates free points in bunches. Bonzi's numbers say average year; Molcan's say revival. Round one is where revivals cash in.
The case for Benjamin Bonzi
45% to winBonzi made the third round here twelve months ago, so his game demonstrably works in these conditions, and his return-heavy baseline style has always been the puzzle rhythm-dependent lefties least enjoy. At 30, with more tour scar tissue than his opponent, an even match in the fourth hour tilts toward the man who has been there more.
Both cases written 2026-08-28, 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: Alex Molcan to advance ✗ WRONG
“The 20–9 season and the lefty serve — form separates twins.”
Locked 2026-08-28 02:55 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Alex MolcanBenjamin BonziPlayer 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 2026-08-27.
Storylines
- Both men's best US Open is a third round — Molcan's in 2021, Bonzi's in 2025 — and both arrive unseeded in the same eighth of the draw.
- Molcan's 20–9 season is the stronger year; Bonzi's dead-even 15–15 includes deeper runs against stronger fields.
- First meeting — a rarity for two Europeans who have shared the tour for a half-decade.
Head to head
Never met at tour level, five shared seasons notwithstanding. The lefty-righty geometry, not history, will decide who dictates.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Court 13, 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.