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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Alex de Minaur vs Botic van de Zandschulp — 6-4 7-5 6-2
 Botic van de Zandschulp✓ | 6 | 7 | 6 |
 Alex de Minaur | 4 | 5 | 2 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
The sixth seed went out on Grandstand at night, to a man who had never beaten him in four previous meetings — three on tour and a Davis Cup rubber in Malaga in 2022. Van de Zandschulp broke once in the first set, twice in the second and twice in the third, won 77% of the points behind his first serve, and made 21 unforced errors to de Minaur's 29. De Minaur saved three match points in the last game, stood on court a moment when it ended, and walked off without looking back. It is his earliest exit here in five years at a tournament where he has three times reached the quarter-finals, and the rain backlog had him playing on consecutive days. "My level today wasn't good enough. It's pretty straightforward," he said afterwards. "I was making a lot of errors, which is not really my normal game style. I can't really explain the reasoning of it, but it felt like the more I tried, the more intensity, the more fired up I was getting, I just kept on making unforced errors." Van de Zandschulp beat Carlos Alcaraz here in 2024 and reached the 2021 quarter-finals as a qualifier. Next: Zizou Bergs.
Alex de MinaurRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 64 halves the draw again: 32 men's matches across Wednesday and Thursday, every one of them between players who have already won here this week. The seeds who came through the opening round now meet opponents carrying form rather than a ranking.
Alex de MinaurBotic van de Zandschulp✓Round of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
Court: Grandstand
Match length: 2:43
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.
De Minaur has beaten van de Zandschulp four times out of four and has not dropped a set to him since 2022. He came through Andrea Guerrieri, a qualifier making his major debut, for the loss of eight games and 99 minutes, winning 82% of the points behind his first serve; he is a quarter-finalist here in each of the last two years and the sixth seed. Van de Zandschulp's case is that he was a quarter-finalist here too, in 2021, and that he has just played the cleanest match of his week — never broken, sixteen aces, 88% of first-serve points won, two break points faced and both saved against Jan Choinski. That is exactly the tennis it takes to trouble de Minaur, whose whole game is built on making an opponent play one more ball than he wants to. The trouble is that the Dutchman has now had four goes at it and has found the answer for one set of the sixteen they have played. The most recent, a Rotterdam quarter-final in February, went to 7-5 in the third, which is the closest he has been.
The case for Alex de Minaur
81% to winFour wins from four, and de Minaur has been the fitter, faster and more consistent player in every one of them. He is the world No. 7 against the world No. 70, a quarter-finalist here in both of the last two years, and he has dropped eight games in the tournament so far. He returns deeper than anyone left in this quarter, which is precisely the shot that turns a big server's free points into rallies.
The case for Botic van de Zandschulp
19% to winVan de Zandschulp is not broken when he serves like this: sixteen aces, no break points conceded and 88% of his first serves won on Wednesday. He is a former US Open quarter-finalist on this court, has beaten top-ten players at this tournament before, and took de Minaur to 7-5 in the third at Rotterdam in February. He is also the taller man by three inches, and de Minaur's answer to a big first serve is to hope it misses.
Both cases written 2026-09-02, 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: Alex de Minaur to advance ✗ WRONG
“A 4-0 head-to-head, sixty-three ranking places and the two most recent quarter-finals at this tournament; the Dutch serve is the only thing in the match that argues otherwise.”
Locked 2026-09-02 23:55 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Alex de MinaurBotic van de ZandschulpPlayer 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 2026-09-02.
Storylines
- De Minaur leads the head-to-head 4-0; van de Zandschulp has won one set in four meetings.
- Both men have reached a US Open quarter-final — de Minaur in each of the last two years, van de Zandschulp in 2021.
- Van de Zandschulp was not broken against Jan Choinski: sixteen aces, 88% of first-serve points won, both break points he faced saved.
- De Minaur beat the qualifier Andrea Guerrieri 6-2 6-2 6-4 in 1 hour 39 minutes.
- It is van de Zandschulp's fifth second round in six US Opens.
Head to head
De Minaur leads 4-0. The closest was a Rotterdam quarter-final in February, 3-6 7-6(4) 7-5; before that came Doha in 2025 (6-4 6-4), the Australian Open first round in 2025 (6-1 7-5 6-4) and a Davis Cup Finals rubber in November 2022 (5-7 6-3 6-4).
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-02.
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.