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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 128
Thiago Agustin Tirantevs
Adrian Mannarino
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Thiago Agustin Tirante to advance · locked 2026-08-28 04:05 UTCPrediction
Tirante, though the old man's flat lefty sorcery makes this closer than the birth certificates suggest. Mannarino at 38 is the oldest non-wildcard in the draw and made the fourth round HERE just last year — the skidding, pace-absorbing game ages beautifully on quick courts — but a 12–23 season and a body managing its 278th career hard-court loss point one direction. Tirante's 29–18 year has carried him to No. 42 and a US Open debut, and his heavy forehand is precisely the shot that moves a 38-year-old side to side until the geometry wins. First meeting. If Mannarino's timing arrives, he can flatten anyone's rhythm for two sets; across five, youth and topspin should erode him. Tirante in four.
The case for Thiago Agustin Tirante
62% to winTirante arrives with the better season by seventeen wins, a career-high ranking, and legs seventeen years younger for a possible fifth set. His looping forehand attacks the one thing Mannarino cannot manufacture anymore — court coverage — and debutant nerves fade faster against an opponent who cannot punish them with pace.
The case for Adrian Mannarino
38% to winMannarino made the second week of this tournament twelve months ago at 37, and his skidding lefty ball is the most rhythm-hostile game a topspin-heavy debutant could draw. He has 276 career hard-court wins and a decade of first-round upsets of exactly this profile; the season record undercounts a player who saves his craft for big rooms.
Both cases written 2026-08-28, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine, quoted to a decimal because false precision is funnier — and tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Thiago Agustin TiranteAdrian MannarinoPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-27.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
The briefing
Storylines
- Mannarino, 38, is the oldest direct entrant in the men's draw — and made the fourth round here just last year.
- Tirante's US Open debut comes at a career-high ranking off a 29-win season — part of a deep Argentine contingent across this draw.
- First meeting: 38 against 25, flat against topspin, 276 career hard-court wins against 30.
Head to head
Never met — Mannarino's two decades on tour and Tirante's clay-road rise finally intersect. Styles this opposed rarely need a history to be interesting.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Watch: Opening-round coverage starts Sunday at 11 a.m. ET across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, including a whip-around channel for the early rounds. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned — the US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before, so day-one courts land the night of 29 August. This one profiles as a field-court match. (US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-08-27)
Weather: The opening window looks kind: mostly sunny and 85–86°F Sunday and Monday, with thunderstorm chances only creeping in on Tuesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs if the sky turns; the field courts wait it out. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-27)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
Round of 128 as an era check: Mannarino, the tour's great time-capsule lefty, defends last year's improbable second-week points against a debutant born the year he turned pro-adjacent. Tirante's section is as open as his side of the sport gets — win two matches and the seeds you meet are the beatable kind. For the Frenchman, every round survived extends the tour's longest-running exhibition of pace-absorption. Sunday through Tuesday; the forecast behaves until midweek.
