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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Juncheng Shang vs Marco Trungelliti — 0-6 7-6(5) 1-6 6-3 6-4
 Marco Trungelliti✓ | 0 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 6 |
 Juncheng Shang | 6 | 65 | 6 | 3 | 4 |
Final · Monday, August 31, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Shang won 141 points to Trungelliti's 130 and lost. He took the first set 6-0 in twenty-two minutes and the third 6-1, and in between and afterwards he could not close anything out: seven of nineteen break points converted, against four of seven the other way. The second set was where it turned. Trungelliti held from 0-40 in the opening game, broke for 3-1, was broken back twice to trail 6-5, broke again to force the tiebreak, went down 5-4 in it and won it 7-6(5). He broke early in the fourth and early in the fifth, and led 4-3, 40-0 when rain took them off for the best part of an hour. Shang held on the resumption; serving at 5-4 Trungelliti came forward and closed it out 6-4, three hours twenty-seven minutes after the 6-0. He is 36, ranked 83 on entry, into the top 100 for the first time this year and an ATP finalist for the first time at Marrakech; this is his third US Open main draw and his first win in New York since beating Alejandro Davidovich Fokina in 2021. Shang, 21 and left-handed, was playing on a protected ranking after more than five months out with a right foot injury. Alexander Blockx is next.
Juncheng ShangRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128 as a fitness referendum: Shang's ranking says No. 227, his 2024 third round here says top-40, and Sunday tells us which number is lying. Trungelliti's whole career has been about being the wrong man to face on a comeback day. The winner takes a Round of 64 date against fifth-seeded Flavio Cobolli or Comesaña — a section that got heavier when Cobolli's summer did. Men's first-round play runs Sunday through Tuesday.
What we know now
Court: Court 13
Match length: 3:27
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.
Shang, if the body cooperates — and that conditional is the whole match. The 21-year-old lefty was a US Open third-rounder in 2024 and his career hard-court record (54–45) reads like the top-40 player he was on the way to becoming; the No. 227 next to his name is what an injury-wrecked season looks like, five wins all year. Trungelliti at 36 is the tour's great survivor, a road-warrior with a 17–20 season and a game that gives nothing away cheaply. If Shang's movement is genuinely back, his class wins in three or four; if the layoff shows, Trungelliti is precisely the opponent who makes you pay for rust one rally at a time. Talent over grind, narrowly.
The case for Juncheng Shang
65% to winShang at full working order is a different weight class: a third round here two years ago at 19, wins over seeded opposition, and a lefty forehand that turns quick courts into short points. Even at five wins for the season, the class gap between a once-top-40 21-year-old and a 36-year-old ranked 83rd is real — and best-of-five gives class time to settle in.
The case for Marco Trungelliti
35% to winTrungelliti has out-lasted a generation of more talented players by making every match a test of patience, and he faces an opponent whose season has been one long fitness question. Seventeen wins this year to Shang's five; matches played is the stat that wins first rounds against players coming back from injury.
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: Juncheng Shang to advance ✗ WRONG
“Class over grind: a 54–45 career hard-court record at 21 outweighs a season's worth of rust against a 36-year-old grinder — narrowly.”
Locked 2026-08-28 03:15 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Juncheng ShangMarco TrungellitiPlayer 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
- Shang's third round here in 2024 made him the first man from mainland China in the Open Era to reach that stage — he returns ranked No. 227 after an injury-ruined season.
- Trungelliti, 36, is the second-oldest man in the draw's resolved matchups — only Gaël Monfils, in his farewell, is older.
- First meeting: a 15-year age gap, and a classic tour collision of returning talent against relentless mileage.
Head to head
Never met. Shang's rise and injury dip both happened while Trungelliti worked the tour's back roads — the Argentine has seen every game style there is, but not this particular left arm.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Court 13, 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: 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.