US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Andrey Rublev vs 
Otto Virtanen
Monday, August 31, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Andrey Rublev to advance · locked 2026-08-30 18:55 UTCPrediction
Rublev, in straight sets or close to it. He is the 23rd seed, No. 24 in the world, 289–173 on hard courts across a career whose ceiling has been the major quarter-final, one of them here in 2023 — and he has just had his first-round opponent swapped out from Marin Cilic, a former champion of this tournament, to a lucky loser ranked 109th. Virtanen is a genuine hard-court server at 6ft 4in and has a second round here on his record from 2024, but he is 13–13 on the season and 30–32 on the surface for his career, and there is a question mark over him that the draw sheet answers plainly: he did not play his final qualifying round on Friday, and Grigor Dimitrov advanced by walkover. A man who could not take the court three days ago is a difficult pick against this opponent.
The case for Andrey Rublev
75.3% to winThe gap is enormous and the numbers do not disguise it: 289–173 on hard against 30–32, a US Open quarter-final against a second round, No. 24 against No. 109. Rublev has also had the easier week — he has been practising while Virtanen was playing qualifying, and then got a draw upgrade when Cilic pulled out. His return is the shot that undoes a serve-first opponent, and over five sets he only needs one break a set. Add the walkover Virtanen conceded on Friday, and the fitness question runs entirely one way.
The case for Otto Virtanen
24.7% to winVirtanen's game is built for exactly this court — a big first serve off a 6ft 4in frame, short points, few chances to be out-rallied. He won two qualifying matches here last week, one of them from a set down against Jack Pinnington Jones, so he has match reps on the surface that Rublev does not. Rublev is 27–17 this season, well short of his best years, and is the most self-combustible top-30 player in the sport: if the first set goes to a tiebreak and Virtanen holds his nerve, the Finn is playing an opponent who has to beat himself as well as the man opposite.
Both cases written 2026-08-30, 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 2026-08-30.
The briefing
Storylines
- Rublev's original opponent was Marin Cilic, the 2014 US Open champion, who withdrew before the first round; Virtanen replaced him as a lucky loser.
- Virtanen reached the final qualifying round but did not play it — the official draw records a walkover to Grigor Dimitrov on Friday — and is in the main draw anyway.
- Rublev has never reached a Grand Slam semi-final, having lost every major quarter-final he has played; his best US Open run is the 2023 quarter-final.
- First meeting: they have never played at tour level.
- Rublev competes as a neutral athlete, so no flag appears beside his name here or on the official scoreboards.
Head to head
No previous meetings. Virtanen has spent most of his career outside the top 100 and the pair have never been drawn together on tour.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-30.
Watch: First-round coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC through the opening days, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, which is where a Court 7 first-rounder will be found. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Court 7, Monday 31 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 2026-08-30)
Weather: A wet opening: Sunday is mostly sunny near 80°F but carries a 50% chance of showers from 2 p.m. and thunderstorms likely overnight. Monday is the driest day of the window — partly sunny, 78°F, a 20% shower chance — before rain returns Monday night and storm odds sit near 50–60% through Tuesday and Wednesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs; the field courts wait. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-30)
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 men's matches across three days, every seed in action, every qualifier dreaming. Two of those matches were rewritten before a ball was struck — Casper Ruud and Marin Cilic both withdrew as the first round began, and two lucky losers took their places. This is one of them: Rublev's date with a former champion of this tournament became a date with the world No. 109 instead. First-round losers leave with $140,000; the winner here already knows the next opponent — Daniel Merida came through Marton Fucsovics in straight sets on day one.
