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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Felix Auger-Aliassime vs Karen Khachanov
Round of 64
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My pick: Felix Auger-Aliassime to advance · locked 2026-09-01 09:45 UTCPrediction
Two men who have reached the semi-finals of this tournament and nothing further, meeting for a fifth time at 2-2. Auger-Aliassime is the third seed and world No. 4 and had by far the harder Monday: three hours nineteen minutes against Rinky Hijikata, a fifty-five-minute rain delay between the second set and the third, eleven double faults, fifty unforced errors, and a failure to serve out the match at 5-4 in the fourth before he broke again in the eleventh game. Khachanov spent barely half that time on court, beating Roman Burruchaga 6-3 6-0 6-1. That is the shape of it: the better player, tired and imprecise, against a player ranked 46 places lower who is fresh and has been here before. Khachanov's season has been poor — 16-19 — and he split their two hard-court meetings. Auger-Aliassime should win because his ceiling is higher and because he has spent the last two years turning ragged matches into wins at this event. He should not expect it to be short.
The case for Felix Auger-Aliassime
60% to winHe is world No. 4 to Khachanov's No. 50, 32-16 on the season to 16-19, and both of his career Grand Slam semi-finals have come on these courts — 2021 and 2025. Even at his most wasteful on Monday he found six breaks of serve from thirteen chances and hit seventeen aces. Khachanov has not beaten a top-five player this year.
The case for Karen Khachanov
40% to winKhachanov reached the semi-finals here in 2022 and beat Burruchaga in an hour and a half while Auger-Aliassime was grinding through three and a quarter hours and a rain delay. Their head-to-head is level at 2-2, he won the most recent meeting 6-3 1-6 6-3 at Halle in 2025, and his career hard-court record — 217-169 — is marginally the better of the two. A big server who returns well is exactly the opponent who punishes eleven double faults.
Both cases written 2026-09-01, 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
Felix Auger-AliassimeKaren KhachanovPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-01.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
The briefing
Storylines
- Their head-to-head is 2-2; Khachanov won the last meeting, 6-3 1-6 6-3 at Halle in June 2025.
- Auger-Aliassime needed 3 hours 19 minutes and survived a 55-minute rain delay to beat Rinky Hijikata in four sets, hitting eleven double faults.
- Khachanov beat Roman Burruchaga 6-3 6-0 6-1, losing four games in the last two sets combined.
- Both men have reached the US Open semi-finals — Auger-Aliassime in 2021 and 2025, Khachanov in 2022 — and neither has reached a Grand Slam final.
- Auger-Aliassime is 32-16 on the season; Khachanov is 16-19.
Head to head
Four meetings, level at 2-2 and split 1-1 on hard courts: Auger-Aliassime won at Cincinnati in 2021 and 's-Hertogenbosch in 2022, Khachanov in Canada in 2019 and at Halle in June 2025.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
Watch: Second-round coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, which is where a match away from the two show courts will live. (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, and this match has not reached the board yet. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-09-01)
Weather: Tonight is the last of the wet weather and the worst of it: showers and thunderstorms at 84% before the sky clears to mostly cloudy on a low near 71°F. Wednesday is the break the tournament has been waiting for — near 75°F on an 18% chance of a shower — though storms creep back after dark at 65%. Thursday is the unsettled one, warm at 81°F with showers and thunderstorms likely at 65% and 53% overnight. Friday turns: near 82°F and mostly sunny on 10%, the first clean day of the fortnight, with Saturday better still. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-01)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The Round of 64 is where a Grand Slam draw stops being a lottery and becomes a tournament. Sixty-four men's matches opened the bracket; thirty-two across Wednesday and Thursday halve what is left, and everyone still here has already won on these courts. Seeds who came through the first round now meet opponents carrying form rather than a ranking.
