US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Flavio Cobolli vs 
Tristan Schoolkate
Round of 64
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Flavio Cobolli to advance · locked 2026-09-01 23:05 UTCPrediction
Cobolli, and the only real question is what four hours and thirteen minutes cost him. He came from two sets down to beat Francisco Comesana on Tuesday, the first time he has done that in his career, in a closed-roof Louis Armstrong with no air-conditioning and 93% humidity, and he did it while losing the total-points count. Schoolkate was on court for three hours and three minutes himself, in a match of forty-one aces settled by two points — so neither man arrives fresh, but one of them is ranked sixth in the world and the other 180th, and the qualifier has to beat a top-ten player over five sets rather than surprise him over three. They have never met. Schoolkate's route through qualifying and a first main-draw win says his serve travels and his nerve holds; Cobolli's season, a Roland Garros final and thirty-two wins, says he is a level above that. Recovery is the variable, not the matchup.
The case for Flavio Cobolli
84% to winCobolli is ranked sixth, seeded fifth, and 32-19 on the season with a Roland Garros final behind him this year. He is 13-2 in deciding sets in 2026 and has just proved for the first time that he can win from two sets down. He is also the fresher of the two in the way that counts most — he is a far better player, and over best-of-five the ranking gap of 174 places is very hard for a qualifier to hide.
The case for Tristan Schoolkate
16% to winSchoolkate has won four matches at this tournament already — three in qualifying, then three hours and three minutes against a fellow qualifier in which he hit twenty-five aces and won the only tiebreak. Cobolli has spent more than four hours in a sauna of a stadium and has a day to get over it. Schoolkate is a 25-year-old who keeps finding the long matches in New York and keeps coming out of them, and at 180th in the world he plays with nothing whatever to protect.
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
Flavio CobolliTristan SchoolkatePlayer 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 2026-09-01.
The briefing
Storylines
- They have never played each other.
- Cobolli came from two sets down for the first time in his career, beating Francisco Comesana 3-6 2-6 6-3 6-4 6-4 in four hours and thirteen minutes under a closed roof.
- Schoolkate beat fellow qualifier Nishesh Basavareddy 7-6(4) 3-6 6-3 6-4 in a match with forty-one aces and a two-point margin across 240 points.
- It is the first time Schoolkate has qualified for a Grand Slam, and his third consecutive US Open main draw.
- Cobolli lost the US Open mixed-doubles final with Belinda Bencic during Fan Week, five days before the main draw began.
Head to head
They have never met at tour level.
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.
Round of 128
Round of 32