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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Flavio Cobolli vs Tristan Schoolkate — 3-6 6-3 6-4 7-5
 Flavio Cobolli✓ | 3 | 6 | 6 | 7 |
 Tristan Schoolkate | 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
For the second match running Cobolli lost the first set and won anyway. Schoolkate broke in the fourth game, held from 0-30 twice and served it out; Cobolli reached 0-30 on three separate Schoolkate service games in that set without converting anything. The turn came in the eighth game of the second, where two lobs — one backhand, one forehand — earned Cobolli his first break point of the match and a second brought the break. He hit the shot of the day in the third, a between-the-legs lob winner, broke in the fifth game and served out to love. Schoolkate broke to open the fourth, but he took only two break points all match and converted both; Cobolli broke straight back on a double fault and again at 5-5, with another lob, then served it out on his first match point. He finished with 43 winners against eighteen unforced errors. It is a third straight year in the US Open third round for the fifth seed, who has still never reached the last sixteen here. Schoolkate, ranked 180th, had won four matches in New York including qualifying.
Flavio CobolliRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
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.
Flavio Cobolli✓Tristan SchoolkateRound of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
Court: Grandstand
Match length: 2:42
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.
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.
My locked pick: Flavio Cobolli to advance ✓ RIGHT
“A top-ten player against a qualifier ranked 180th — discounted only for the four hours and thirteen minutes he spent getting here.”
Locked 2026-09-01 23:05 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Flavio CobolliTristan SchoolkatePlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-02.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
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.
Court & schedule: Grandstand, Thursday 3 September. 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 2026-09-02)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — is 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that cannot be pushed back. Ashe closes its roof and plays on. It clears overnight: 20% Sunday night, 20% Monday, then dry and sunny from Tuesday. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.