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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Alejandro Tabilo vs Alexei Popyrin — 2-6 7-6(4) 7-6(3) 6-2
 Alejandro Tabilo✓ | 2 | 7 | 7 | 6 |
 Alexei Popyrin | 6 | 64 | 63 | 2 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
Popyrin hit 25 aces, was not broken for three sets, and lost. He took the first with breaks in the fifth and seventh games, after which neither man could get near a return: sets two and three both went to tiebreaks and Tabilo took them 7-4 and 7-3, leaning on a first serve he landed only 57% of the time and won 83% of. Tabilo's first break of the match came in the fourth set — Chilean outlets, alone among the coverage, report that Popyrin called for treatment on his left calf around that point — and a second closed it out after 3hr22. He finished with 55 winners to 22 unforced errors against Popyrin's 49 and 35. It is his first US Open third round and his third at a major, after Wimbledon 2024 and Roland Garros this year; Popyrin had won their only previous meeting, in Paris last season. Tabilo told ESPN that the start was hard because Popyrin was serving so well, that he had begun standing further back to change the returns, and that the two tiebreaks were the match. Popyrin, ranked 130th, had beaten Grigor Dimitrov in the first round; he told AAP a week ago that he had been a wreck after Wimbledon and had started working with a mindset coach.
Alejandro TabiloRows 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.
Alejandro Tabilo✓Alexei PopyrinRound of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
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.
Tabilo, narrowly, and the qualifier both men beat is the reason it is narrow. Popyrin arrives having done the harder thing on Monday: he lost the first set to Grigor Dimitrov, a former world No. 3 playing his way out of qualifying, and then won three straight sets around an hour-long rain delay with two double faults to Dimitrov's fourteen and six breaks of serve. Tabilo needed four sets and a lost third-set tiebreak to get past Yannick Hanfmann. On paper this is the 25th seed at No. 28 against a man ranked 130th, and the hard-court numbers say the same thing — Tabilo's serve, from the left, is the single most awkward thing either of them owns on this surface. But Popyrin has beaten him, in straight sets at Roland Garros last year, and he has beaten better than Tabilo on this court: Novak Djokovic, in 2024, in the third round. The gap in ranking is real and the gap in form is not.
The case for Alejandro Tabilo
60% to winTabilo is the seed, ranked 102 places higher, and a left-hander whose serve is the hardest ball either of them will have to read. His season record is 27-22 against Popyrin's 11-20, and he has been the more consistent player across the year by a distance. He also spent less of Monday recovering from a set down. Their one meeting was on clay eighteen months ago, on the surface that suits Popyrin's heavy forehand best and Tabilo's game least.
The case for Alexei Popyrin
40% to winPopyrin has already won here at a level neither man has reached this year — he beat Djokovic on Ashe in 2024 and reached the fourth round — and he owns the only meeting between them, 7-5 6-3 6-4 on clay at Roland Garros in 2025. Monday was his first Grand Slam win of the season after three first-round exits, and it was a clean one: two double faults, eleven aces, six breaks. A ranking of 130 understates a player who has been inside the top 25.
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: Alejandro Tabilo to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The seed, the ranking and the left-handed serve on a hard court — but Popyrin owns the head-to-head and had the harder first round.”
Locked 2026-09-01 09:45 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Alejandro TabiloAlexei PopyrinPlayer 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
- Popyrin beat the qualifier Grigor Dimitrov 3-6 6-3 6-2 6-4, a former world No. 3 who came through three rounds of qualifying to reach the main draw.
- Their only previous meeting was at Roland Garros in 2025, where Popyrin won 7-5 6-3 6-4 in the second round.
- Popyrin beat Novak Djokovic on Arthur Ashe in the third round here in 2024 — the deepest US Open run of his career.
- Tabilo is the 25th seed at No. 28 in the world; Popyrin is ranked 130th and has a season record of 11-20.
- Tabilo has never been past the second round at Flushing Meadows.
Head to head
One meeting, at Roland Garros in May 2025: Popyrin won 7-5 6-3 6-4 in the second round. They have never met on a hard court.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
Court & schedule: Court 7, 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.