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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Lorenzo Musetti vs Arthur Fery — 6-3 6-3 7-5
 Lorenzo Musetti✓ | 6 | 6 | 7 |
 Arthur Fery | 3 | 3 | 5 |
Final · Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Fery walked onto the Grandstand to a welcome the Guardian thought belonged at Wimbledon, and twice put ear plugs in at changeovers to shut it out. Back-to-back double faults at 3-3 gave Musetti the first break of the match; in the second the 13th seed held from 15-40 at 4-2, saving four break points in one game, and served the set out to love. Fery broke for 2-0 in the third — his only lead all evening — before Musetti broke back twice, missed a match point at 5-3, was broken serving for it at 5-4 after a double fault, and finished it two games later. Fery collected a code violation for audible obscenity in the game he lost. Seventeen winners against 43 unforced errors is the shape of it: the British No. 1, a Wimbledon semi-finalist as a wild card two months ago, was six days off his first ATP final in Winston-Salem and playing his first US Open main draw. "I stuck to the game plan, I'm really happy after missing the past two grand slams," said Musetti, who had missed Roland Garros and Wimbledon with a torn thigh muscle. Rain had held the outside courts about four hours.
Lorenzo MusettiRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128 in the draw's most open neighborhood: the eighth this match anchors has no top-eight seed, which makes every first-rounder here a stakes match in disguise. Musetti is defending quarter-final points from 2025; Fery is playing his first US Open at a career-high ranking. Whoever advances gets Sweeny or Moutet next — winnable either way — with the Round of 16 visible from the first Sunday. All 64 men's openers run Sunday through Tuesday under a forecast that mostly cooperates.
What we know now
Court: Grandstand
Match length: 2:09
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.
Musetti, but treat the seeding gap as smaller than it looks. The 13th seed made the quarter-finals here last year and owns the more complete game — the one-handed backhand is the aesthetic headline, but it is his return depth that wins him hard-court matches. The catch: Fery at No. 37 is no longer the college-tennis curiosity of two seasons ago. He is 18–9 this year, 13–6 on hard courts for his career, and this is his first US Open with genuine expectations attached. Musetti's 2026 (19–10) has been solid rather than scary, and his career hard-court record barely clears .500. Over five sets I trust the man who has been here before — in a match that could easily run four.
The case for Lorenzo Musetti
60% to winMusetti is the proven article at this level: a US Open quarter-finalist twelve months ago, a top-15 fixture, and the owner of the best backhand Fery will have faced all season. Best-of-five is a format Fery has barely played and Musetti has spent five years learning; experience in the fourth hour is worth a break of serve on its own.
The case for Arthur Fery
40% to winFery's rise to No. 37 is the quiet story of the season — 18 wins, a hard-court game built on early ball-striking that plays faster than his ranking history, and none of the scar tissue of past New York failures because this is his first main draw here. Musetti's career on hard courts is 106–92: respectable, mortal, and the surface where his artistry pays worst. A hot-hitting debutant is exactly the profile that beats him.
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: Lorenzo Musetti to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The quarter-finalist's pedigree and five-set experience, against a debutant whose form makes this closer than 13-vs-37 suggests.”
Locked 2026-08-28 02:35 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Lorenzo MusettiArthur FeryPlayer 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
- Musetti's run to the 2025 US Open quarter-finals is the deepest hard-court major result of his career — this is his first match back on the courts where it happened.
- Fery, at a career-high ranking, is making his US Open main-draw debut; his 13–6 career hard-court record is the best win percentage of any debutant in the men's field.
- The two have never met — and the winner inherits a very open eighth: no top-eight seed stands between this match and the Round of 16.
Head to head
Never met. Fery's climb has come through the British hard-court pipeline while Musetti was already seeded at majors, so Sunday is a genuine unknown — the kind of first meeting where the opening set's information is worth more than any scouting report.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Grandstand, Tuesday 1 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 2026-08-30)
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.