US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 32
Zizou Bergs vs Botic van de Zandschulp — 3-6 7-6(3) 4-6 7-6(6) 6-3
 Botic van de Zandschulp✓ | 3 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 6 |
 Zizou Bergs | 6 | 63 | 6 | 66 | 3 |
Final · Saturday, September 5, 2026 · Round of 32
Result
Twenty-seven games each, 175 points to Bergs and 171 to van de Zandschulp, and the Dutchman won — which is what four and a half hours decided by two tiebreaks looks like. Bergs broke van de Zandschulp's opening service game in the first set and again in the third, and both times that was the set. The second and fourth went to breakers and van de Zandschulp took both, the fourth 8-6 from two points down, which is as close as Bergs came to a first Grand Slam fourth round. Between them they served 28 double faults, sixteen of them van de Zandschulp's, and in the fifth set Bergs handed over his first two service games and was 4-0 down before he had settled. "This one had to come from very, very deep," van de Zandschulp said. "In stadiums like this, I'm starting to play better tennis." Bergs was more precise about what had gone: "When I'm in a position to close a match out, I still have a tendency to play a bit more cautiously. In that moment I'm not being loyal to myself." It is van de Zandschulp's first Grand Slam second week since Wimbledon 2022, and the third fourth round of his career.
Zizou BergsRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 32 is the third round, and the last one before a Grand Slam draw becomes a small tournament: sixteen men's matches across Friday and Saturday leave sixteen players standing, every one of them having won twice on these courts. This is the round where the seeding chart stops doing any work — from here on, whoever is left is who you play.
Zizou BergsBotic van de Zandschulp✓Round of 64
Round of 32
What we know now
Court: Stadium 17
Match length: 4:29
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.
Two men arrived at the same round on Thursday night by opposite routes. Van de Zandschulp took two hours 43 minutes to beat the sixth seed Alex de Minaur in straight sets, making 21 unforced errors and losing serve once. Bergs took three hours 39 minutes to beat Jesper de Jong, making 65 unforced errors and eight double faults in a match that contained thirteen breaks of serve and was settled in a fourth-set tiebreak. They have never played each other. Hard-court Elo has van de Zandschulp thirteen points ahead despite being 33 places lower in the rankings, and the career hard-court records say the same thing louder: 116-99 for the Dutchman against 69-71 for the seed. Van de Zandschulp is also the more dangerous man on this particular court — a quarter-finalist here as a qualifier in 2021, the man who put Carlos Alcaraz out in the second round in 2024, and a top-ten scalp again last month against Daniil Medvedev in Montreal. Bergs is seeded at a major for the first time in his career and this equals his best US Open. The freshness gap and the history both point one way.
The case for Zizou Bergs
42% to winBergs is the seed, ranked 33 places higher, and has already proved this fortnight that he can win an ugly match — he lost the first four games to de Jong and the second set 6-1 and still found seven breaks of serve and a 7-2 tiebreak. He hit 41 winners to 22 and served an 139 mph delivery, the biggest of the match. He reached the third round here last year too, so nothing about this stage is new to him, and he won his maiden tour title in June.
The case for Botic van de Zandschulp
58% to winVan de Zandschulp has beaten a top-ten player at this tournament twice now, and Thursday's was the cleaner performance of the two men by a distance: 77% of first-serve points won, 21 unforced errors, three match points saved against him and taken on the fourth. He is 47 games and 56 minutes fresher than Bergs coming into this. His career hard-court record is 116-99 against Bergs's 69-71, and hard-court Elo prefers him despite the ranking gap.
Both cases written 2026-09-04, 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: Botic van de Zandschulp to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Fresher by an hour, better on hard courts by record and by Elo, and a proven top-ten beater on this court.”
Locked 2026-09-04 05:50 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Zizou BergsBotic van de ZandschulpPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-04.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-04.
Storylines
- First meeting between them, at any level.
- Van de Zandschulp beat the sixth seed Alex de Minaur in straight sets on Grandstand on Thursday night.
- Bergs needed three hours 39 minutes and a fourth-set tiebreak to get past Jesper de Jong.
- Van de Zandschulp reached the 2021 US Open quarter-finals as a qualifier and beat Carlos Alcaraz here in 2024.
- Bergs is seeded at a major for the first time; the third round equals his best US Open, from 2025.
Head to head
They have never met at tour level.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-04.
Court & schedule: Stadium 17, Saturday 5 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 2026-09-04)
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.