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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 64
Alexander Zverev vs Quentin Halys — 6-4 4-6 7-6(3) 6-7(3) 6-3
 Alexander Zverev✓ | 6 | 4 | 7 | 63 | 6 |
 Quentin Halys | 4 | 6 | 63 | 7 | 3 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
The top seed needed a second five-setter in three days and did not leave Arthur Ashe until 2:15 a.m. Zverev had spent four hours 53 minutes beating Lorenzo Sonego on the same court on Tuesday night; this took four hours 33, and in the third set it was getting away from him — Halys led 4-1 with a break point for 5-1 before Zverev broke straight back and took the tiebreak 7-3. Halys levelled by winning the fourth-set breaker by the same margin, then gave up the decisive break in the fifth game of the decider with one of his 12 double faults. Zverev hit 29 aces to 18 and 60 winners to 54, but converted only five of twenty break points and needed 55 games to see off the world No. 52, who before this week had never won a US Open main-draw match in nine attempts. Thousands had gone home by the end. "The couple of thousand people who stayed made up for the other 15,000 who left," Zverev said. He is the No. 1 seed at a major for the first time — ranked second, seeded first after Jannik Sinner withdrew with a knee injury — and has now spent nine hours 26 minutes on court in two rounds. Next: Alejandro Tabilo.
Alexander ZverevRows 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.
Alexander Zverev✓Quentin HalysRound of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
Court: Arthur Ashe Stadium
Match length: 4:33
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.
Zverev, and the gap between the two men is wider than the gap between their first rounds — but the second one is the reason this is worth watching. He spent four hours and fifty-three minutes on Arthur Ashe on Tuesday night, left the court at 1:55 a.m., and was two points from becoming the first men's top seed beaten in the opening round of a major since 2003. Halys finished his own four-setter in three hours and eleven minutes on Monday and has had an extra day and a half to do nothing. That is the whole of the case for the Frenchman, and it is not nothing in week one. Everything else runs the other way. Halys is 29 and ranked 52nd, with a career hard-court record of 92-103 and a US Open history of five appearances without a win before this one; his 18 aces and 82% of first-serve points won against Facundo Diaz Acosta were the best tennis he has played in New York, and they came against a man ranked outside the top 70. Zverev is the world No. 2, the Roland Garros champion this year and the Wimbledon runner-up, and he has beaten Halys twice in 2026 already — in straight sets in Miami and in four at Roland Garros. Best-of-five gives a tired favourite time to stop being tired.
The case for Alexander Zverev
85% to winZverev has won both meetings this year and has never lost to Halys, and the version of him that lost two sets to Lorenzo Sonego still won 175 points to 169 and hit 61 winners. He is the best returner in this half of the draw on paper — 22 break points earned in one match is a number Halys's serve will not survive twice — and a man who has reached a US Open final and won Roland Garros knows how to play the round after a five-setter. The draw does not get easier from here, so there is no reason to ration anything.
The case for Quentin Halys
15% to winHalys has the fresher legs by a day and a half, the bigger serve on the day (18 aces, 82% of first-serve points won) and nothing at all to lose: he had never won a match at this tournament until Monday. Zverev has now played more five-set matches in the opening weeks of Slams than any top-ten player of the last half-century, and a body that finished at two in the morning is a body that stiffens. If Halys can hold serve into the third and make the match long, the question stops being about ranking.
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: Alexander Zverev to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Two wins over Halys this year, a 52-place ranking gap and best-of-five to absorb the fatigue; the extra day of rest is the only argument the other way.”
Locked 2026-09-02 10:30 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Alexander ZverevQuentin HalysPlayer 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 2026-09-02.
Storylines
- Zverev leads 2-0, both this year: Miami in March, 7-6(4) 7-6(1), and Roland Garros in May, 6-4 6-3 5-7 6-2.
- Zverev's first round lasted 4:53 and ended at 1:55 a.m.; Sonego saved 17 of the 22 break points he faced and served at 5-4, 30-30 in the fourth set.
- Halys had played the US Open five times without winning a match, twice arriving through qualifying, before beating Facundo Diaz Acosta in four sets on Monday.
- Zverev is the top seed at a major for the first time, Jannik Sinner having withdrawn with a knee injury; his best US Open result is the 2020 final.
- Halys is 29, ranked 52nd, and 92-103 on hard courts for his career; Zverev is 339-158.
Head to head
Zverev leads 2-0, both meetings this season: 7-6(4) 7-6(1) in the Miami fourth round in March, and 6-4 6-3 5-7 6-2 in the Roland Garros third round in May.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-02.
Court & schedule: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Thursday 3 September in the night session. 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.