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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Lloyd Harris vs Stefanos Tsitsipas — 6-7(1) 6-3 7-6(4) 6-4
 Stefanos Tsitsipas✓ | 61 | 6 | 7 | 6 |
 Lloyd Harris | 7 | 3 | 64 | 4 |
Final · Wednesday, September 2, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
Stefanos Tsitsipas needed three and a half hours and a great many break points he did not take to get past a qualifier, and it puts him in the third round of a major for the first time since Roland-Garros 2024. Lloyd Harris — 29, from Cape Town, South Africa's top-ranked man, through three rounds of qualifying, and a US Open quarter-finalist here in 2021 — served for the opening set at 6-5, was broken back, then won the tiebreak 7-1. Tsitsipas, unseeded and 53rd in the world after knocking out 10th seed Arthur Fils in the first round, replied with two breaks from 3-3 and conceded no break point at all in either the second set or the fourth. The third was where it nearly went: broken at 3-4, he needed four break points to level, then held four set points at 6-5 and converted none, before taking the tiebreak 7-4. He finished 5 of 17 on break points, with 57 winners against 50 unforced errors, and won the closing set by a single point, 33 to 32. Jiri Lehecka, the 18th seed, is next; they have met four times and split them.
Lloyd HarrisRows 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.
Lloyd HarrisStefanos Tsitsipas✓Round of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
Court: Stadium 17
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.
Tsitsipas, on the back of the best match he has played at this tournament in years — and it is closer than the ranking gap suggests. He had lost all five previous meetings with Arthur Fils without taking a set, was a set and a break down, and then took the last two sets for the loss of four games: 51 winners, five breaks from twelve, 25 of 32 at the net. Harris was every bit as convincing in his own way, coming through qualifying and then beating Jack Kennedy 6-4 6-2 6-2 in 1 hour 41 minutes with sixteen aces to four and six breaks from nine chances. He is the only man in this match who has been to a US Open quarter-final — 2021, the run that took him to No. 31 — and at No. 139 he is a qualifier the seeds would rather not have drawn. The ratings put it around 65–35 to Tsitsipas. Two 6′4″ right-handers who have never met.
The case for Lloyd Harris
35% to winHarris has the more efficient week so far: through qualifying, then 1 hour 41 minutes and sixteen aces against four in a straight-sets win, against Tsitsipas's 2 hours 54. He reached the quarter-finals here in 2021, which is deeper than Tsitsipas has ever gone at this tournament — the Greek's best is a third round. A 103–72 career hard-court record at a ranking of 139 is a player between levels rather than below them.
The case for Stefanos Tsitsipas
65% to winTsitsipas has just beaten a top-20 player at the US Open for the first time, having been 0-5 against him and never having won a set. He hit 51 winners, came forward 32 times and won 25 of those points, and closed with an ace — a version of him that has been missing since he began working with Patrick Mouratoglou again in June. His 252–139 on hard courts more than doubles Harris's volume, and a qualifier in a fourth match of the fortnight is where fatigue starts to show.
Both cases written 2026-08-31, 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: Stefanos Tsitsipas to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Form and hard-court volume, with the caveat that Harris has been further at this tournament than he has.”
Locked 2026-08-31 20:50 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Lloyd HarrisStefanos TsitsipasPlayer 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 2026-08-31.
Storylines
- Tsitsipas ended an 0-5 record against Arthur Fils, having never taken a set off him, winning 4-6 7-6(3) 6-1 6-4.
- It was his first win over a top-20 player at the US Open; he is ranked 53rd.
- Harris qualified and then beat Jack Kennedy 6-4 6-2 6-2 in 1 hour 41 minutes with 16 aces to four.
- Harris reached the US Open quarter-finals in 2021 — deeper than Tsitsipas has ever gone here.
- First meeting: two 6′4″ right-handers who have never played.
Head to head
They have never met at tour level.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-31.
Court & schedule: Stadium 17, Wednesday 2 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.