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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 32
Luciano Darderi vs Dane Sweeny — 6-4 6-3 6-3
 Luciano Darderi✓ | 6 | 6 | 6 |
 Dane Sweeny | 4 | 3 | 3 |
Final · Saturday, September 5, 2026 · Round of 32
Result
Eight breaks of serve in a straight-sets match, and Darderi took six of his eight chances against Sweeny's two of eight. He broke in the third game and never gave the first set back; the second was the volatile one — a break in the opening game, broken straight back in the second, then breaks in the fifth and the ninth. The third turned on consecutive games: Darderi broke for 2-0 with a lob dropped on the line, was broken back immediately on a long backhand, then broke again in the fourth after a punishing rally, and from there the 170cm Australian was visibly spent. Darderi finished with 100 points to 76 and won 72% of his first serves to 54%. Sweeny, a wild card ranked 123rd who only entered the main draw on 20 August when Tennis Australia's reciprocal place came free, had beaten the 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti in the second round, a match Musetti finished dizzy in the New York heat. Darderi has not met a top-100 player here. He is the last Italian left in either singles draw, Flavio Cobolli having gone out to Blockx hours earlier, and this is his second Grand Slam fourth round — both on hard courts.
Luciano DarderiRows 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.
Round of 64
Round of 32
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.
Darderi is seeded 21st and ranked 22nd on the strength of a clay season; his career hard-court record is 20-41, and this is the surface where his ranking and his results diverge most. He got here by beating the qualifier Dalibor Svrcina 6-3 6-7 6-4 6-4 in 3hr44, which is a long way round against a man ranked outside the top 100. Sweeny is the story of the men's draw so far: a 170cm wild card who only entered when Alexei Popyrin moved up on ranking, ranked 123rd and No. 408 a year ago, who beat the 13th seed Lorenzo Musetti 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-2 on Thursday for his first top-20 win and his first Grand Slam third round. Musetti was unwell for three of those sets, which is the caveat, but Sweeny broke eight times from seventeen chances and came to the net 37 times, which is not something illness hands you. He is 22-17 on hard courts this season against Darderi's much worse career mark on the surface. They met once, in Australian Open qualifying in January 2023, Darderi winning 7-5 1-6 6-1. The Elo tables give Darderi about 290 points, which on a hard court against this opponent reads high.
The case for Luciano Darderi
66% to winSeeded, ranked a hundred places higher, and coming off a four-set win that at least proves he can stay out there for the best part of four hours in this heat. Darderi's heavy forehand is a real weapon on any surface, and Sweeny is the smallest man left in the draw — over five sets, a 6ft opponent hitting through him is the shape that has beaten him before. He also owns the only meeting.
The case for Dane Sweeny
34% to winDarderi is 20-41 on hard courts for his career, which is not a small-sample wobble but a settled fact about where his game works, and he needed 3hr44 against a qualifier two days before this. Sweeny has beaten a top-15 player, has spent the fortnight sharpening a net game that produced 26 winning approaches on Thursday, and arrives with nothing to defend and a crowd that has adopted him.
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: Luciano Darderi to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The seed and the Elo gap, held at arm's length: Darderi's hard-court record is the reason this is 66-34 rather than the 84-16 the tables suggest.”
Locked 2026-09-04 00:10 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Luciano DarderiDane SweenyPlayer 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 2026-09-03.
Storylines
- Sweeny only got into the draw as a wild card when Alexei Popyrin moved up on ranking; a year ago he was No. 408.
- Darderi is 20-41 on hard courts for his career while ranked 22nd, the widest surface split of anyone left in the men's draw.
- Darderi needed 3hr44 to beat the qualifier Dalibor Svrcina in the second round.
- Their only meeting was in Australian Open qualifying in January 2023, Darderi winning in three.
- At 5ft 7in Sweeny is the shortest man left in the singles draw.
Head to head
Darderi leads 1-0, from the second qualifying round of the 2023 Australian Open: 7-5 1-6 6-1 on hard. Neither man had played a Grand Slam main draw at the time.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-03.
Court & schedule: Court 5, 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.