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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Alejandro Tabilo vs 
Alexei Popyrin
Round of 64
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Alejandro Tabilo to advance · locked 2026-09-01 09:45 UTCPrediction
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.
Tale of the tape
Alejandro TabiloAlexei PopyrinPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-01.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
The briefing
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.
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 64
Alejandro TabiloAlexei PopyrinRound of 32