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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 32
Alexander Zverev vs Alejandro Tabilo — 6-2 7-6(2) 6-2
 Alexander Zverev✓ | 6 | 7 | 6 |
 Alejandro Tabilo | 2 | 62 | 2 |
Final · Saturday, September 5, 2026 · Round of 32
Result
Zverev's first two matches here had taken 9h26 between them; this one took 2h26, and for a set it was the cleanest tennis he has played in New York. He faced no break point in the opener, won all eleven points behind his first serve, and had it in 38 minutes. Then it drifted. Tabilo, who by one on-site account had spent fifteen games doing nothing at all, broke back at 3-4 in the second with a running forehand pass, won three games in a row for 5-4 and had two set points; Zverev saved both, broke for 6-5, was broken straight back, and took the tiebreak 7-2 from 2-1 down. Tabilo had two break points to open the third and Zverev answered both with winners. That was the end of it. He threw his racquet at the back wall at one point and converted on his second match point, after 1 a.m., on his third consecutive late shift. "I spent 10 hours on the court in two matches so I had to find my rhythm somehow, and I did," he said. Tabilo, out in his best US Open, was harder on himself: he had come on tense, felt nothing on the ball, and on the break points said he had needed to go and look for it rather than wait.
Alexander ZverevRows 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
Court: Arthur Ashe Stadium
Match length: 2:26
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 has won both tour-level meetings and neither was close on a hard court: he beat Tabilo 6-2 7-6(4) 6-4 in the first round here a year ago and came through their Rome semi-final in 2024 after dropping the opener. He is also the man who has walked off Arthur Ashe after one in the morning twice this week. Nine hours 26 minutes across two five-set nights — 4:53 against Lorenzo Sonego on Tuesday, 4:33 against Quentin Halys finishing at 2:15 a.m. on Friday — is the kind of accumulation that decides third rounds, and Tabilo has played 5:58 in total, both matches in daylight on outside courts. Set against that: Zverev's hard-court record is 340-158 to Tabilo's 67-57, he reached the final here in 2020 and won Roland-Garros in June, and even playing badly he served 29 aces on Thursday. Tabilo is the more interesting underdog than his ranking suggests — a left-hander who has beaten Novak Djokovic twice and never lost to him, and who is into a US Open third round for the first time. But a left-hander who has never taken a set off Zverev on a hard court needs the fatigue to do most of the work, and Zverev has now made a habit of surviving on nights when nothing is going right. Zverev, in four.
The case for Alexander Zverev
76% to winZverev is 2-0 against Tabilo and won their US Open meeting last year in straight sets. He is the No. 1 seed, ranked second in the world, a Roland-Garros champion this June and a US Open finalist in 2020, with a career hard-court record of 340-158 against Tabilo's 67-57. Two five-set survivals say something about his form, but they also say he does not lose these: he has been broken repeatedly and beaten neither opponent comfortably, and he is still here. At 6ft 6in he served 29 aces on a night he described as one of his worst.
The case for Alejandro Tabilo
24% to winTabilo is a left-hander with a first-strike serve, and the last time a world No. 1 stood across the net from him at a Masters 1000 he won 6-2 6-3 — he has beaten Djokovic twice and never lost to him. He is the fresher man by three and a half hours of court time, having taken out Alexei Popyrin 2-6 7-6(4) 7-6(3) 6-2 in the afternoon while Zverev was starting a five-setter at nine at night. His career high is No. 19, this is his first US Open third round, and if Zverev's forehand is still misfiring in the crucial games the way it was on Thursday, a left-hander is the wrong opponent to be misfiring against.
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: Alexander Zverev to advance ✓ RIGHT
“2-0 up, never beaten by Tabilo on a hard court, and 269 points of hard-court Elo clear; shaded down from the Elo split for nine and a half hours of five-set tennis in two rounds.”
Locked 2026-09-04 10:50 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Alexander ZverevAlejandro TabiloPlayer 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
- Zverev has played two five-set matches to reach the third round — 9 hours 26 minutes, both finishing after 1:55 a.m. — while Tabilo has spent 5 hours 58 minutes on court in daylight.
- It is Zverev's first Grand Slam as the No. 1 seed; he is ranked second and was seeded first after Jannik Sinner withdrew with a knee injury.
- They met in the first round here a year ago and Zverev won 6-2 7-6(4) 6-4.
- Tabilo has beaten Novak Djokovic twice — Rome in 2024 and Monte-Carlo in 2025 — and has never lost to him.
- This is Tabilo's first US Open third round; his previous best at Flushing Meadows was a second round in 2022.
Head to head
Two meetings, both to Zverev: the Rome semi-final in 2024 on clay, 1-6 7-6(4) 6-2, and the first round of this tournament last year, 6-2 7-6(4) 6-4.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-04.
Court & schedule: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Saturday 5 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 2026-09-04)
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.