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Sports · US Open 2026 · Men's Singles · Round of 16
Learner Tien vs Karen Khachanov
Round of 16
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Learner Tien to advance · locked 2026-09-06 12:40 UTCPrediction
Tien is 20 years old, left-handed, seeded 14th, and 5-0 in five-set matches. The last of those, against the 17th seed Jakub Menšík at one-thirty on Sunday morning, is the reason to take him seriously and also the reason to hesitate: he won it while being out-served 23 aces to 4, out-hit 55 winners to 35, and out-scored 155 points to 150. That is a player winning on the parts of tennis that do not show up in a highlight reel — the returns, the passes, the three break points saved at 2-2 in the fifth. Hard-court Elo has him 149 points clear of Khachanov, which is roughly 70-30, and the seeding, the ranking and the crowd all point the same way. Khachanov's case is that he has been the better player for a fortnight against better opposition. He arrived having lost early at all three US Open tune-ups and then beat the third seed Félix Auger-Aliassime 6-7(5) 6-3 6-2 6-2, breaking seven times, and then Benjamin Bonzi 6-3 6-2 6-4 without fuss. He is a former world No. 8 and a US Open semi-finalist in 2022, and at 30 he is exactly the kind of opponent who does not care that the stadium wants the other man. This is a first meeting. Tien has never played anyone with Khachanov's serve at a Slam and Khachanov has never seen a left-hander of Tien's particular kind — a counter-puncher who changes tactical shape mid-match, in Menšík's own description. I take Tien, at close to what the ratings say, because the two things he does best are the two things that beat a big hitter having a mediocre year.
The case for Learner Tien
68% to winTien has not lost a five-setter in his career and has now won three matches here after losing his opening match at this tournament four years running. He beat Nuno Borges without a double fault, ended Gaël Monfils's Grand Slam career in the second round, and came through Menšík having been out-served and out-hit for three and a half hours. He is 20, seeded 14th, has already made the Australian Open quarter-finals and the Montreal semi-finals this season, and has been coached since last summer by Michael Chang, who knows better than anyone what a young player can do in a fortnight. He is the youngest man left in the draw and the youngest American in this round since Roddick in 2002.
The case for Karen Khachanov
32% to winKhachanov has beaten the best player either man has faced this fortnight. Auger-Aliassime was the third seed and ranked fourth in the world, and Khachanov broke him seven times while saving seven of the nine break points he faced. It was his first top-ten win of the year and only his second at a major. He was a semi-finalist here in 2022 and a top-ten player as recently as last season, and this is the first year of his career in which he has reached the third round at all four Slams. Unseeded at 50th, he is the one man left in this quarter with no ranking to protect and nothing that a 20-year-old's crowd can take away from him.
Both cases written 2026-09-06, 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
Learner TienKaren KhachanovPlayer 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 2026-09-06.
The briefing
Storylines
- Menšík hit 23 aces to Tien's 4, 55 winners to 35, and won 155 points to Tien's 150 — and lost in five sets. Tien is 5-0 in career five-setters.
- At 2-2 in the deciding set Menšík reached 40-0 on the Tien serve and converted none of the three break points. Two games later, serving at 4-5, he put a forehand into the net on match point.
- Tien had lost his opening match at four consecutive US Opens, the last of them to Djokovic under lights in 2025. He is now the youngest American man in the fourth round here since Andy Roddick in 2002.
- Khachanov beat the third seed Auger-Aliassime in the second round for his first top-ten win of 2026, breaking seven times. It is his first run past the third round in New York since the 2022 semi-final.
- Tien has been coached since after Wimbledon 2025 by Michael Chang, who won Roland Garros at 17 and is still the youngest men's major champion of the Open era.
- Five American men are in the last 16 — Tien, Paul, Tiafoe, Shelton and Michelsen — the most in New York since eight in 1995. No American man has won this title since Roddick in 2003.
- They have never met. Khachanov turned professional the year Tien turned eight.
Head to head
A first meeting. They have not played on tour, in qualifying or at Challenger level.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-06.
Watch: Fourth-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 2026-09-06)
Weather: Today — the front half of the fourth round — is 72°F with a 21% chance of a passing shower, and tonight is mostly clear at 62°F. Labor Day, when the other four fourth rounds are played, is sunny and 77°F with nothing in it, and Monday night is partly cloudy at 66°F. The quarter-final days are drier still: sunny and 79°F Tuesday, mostly sunny and 80°F Wednesday, with the first shower chance of the week returning at 21% late Wednesday night. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-06)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The Round of 16 is the fourth round, and the point at which a Grand Slam stops being a draw and becomes a tournament you can hold in your head: eight matches, played across Sunday and Monday, and the eight who come through are the quarter-finalists. Everyone still here has won three matches on these courts, so the seedings have stopped being a guide and the form of the fortnight has taken over.
Round of 32
Quarter-finals