US Open, August 30: Medvedev meets Gaston's junk, Djokovic starts under the lights

The men's draw at the US Open opens today, and the first round is already loaded with the questions that usually take a week to surface. Daniil Medvedev walks onto a hard court he once owned with the worst mood of his career and a qualifier who specialises in making tall men run forward. Novak Djokovic plays his first competitive match since a Cincinnati afternoon where the heat, by his own account, did more damage than his opponent. And somewhere between them, Denis Shapovalov and Alexander Bublik turn up carrying the same charm and the same risk they always have.

There is no dominant favourite feel to this day, which is precisely what makes it good: three of the five matches hinge on whether a body or a temper holds. Here is the order I'll follow:

• 15:00 — Lehecka — Carreno-Busta
• 17:30 — Medvedev — Gaston
• 18:30 — Kecmanovic — Shapovalov
• 23:05 — Navone — Djokovic
• 00:30 — Bublik — Wolf

Times are UTC.

Jiri Lehecka — Pablo Carreno-Busta

They have split two meetings this season, and the split is a neat little lesson in surfaces. In Dubai in February, on a quick hard court, Lehecka got through 7-6(6) 6-4 — tight, but decided by the man who hit first. At Roland Garros in May, Carreno-Busta simply absorbed everything and won in three, 6-3 7-6(3) 6-3, the sort of scoreline that looks calm and feels like an hour of being told no.

New York should tilt back to the Czech. Lehecka's hard-court season has been solid rather than spotless, and the pattern repeats: he is excellent when the first strike lands, and he unravels when he starts fiddling. In Cincinnati against Arthur Fils he was blown off the court in the first set, rebuilt the match to a tie-break win in the second, and then lost the thread again in the decider, 1-6 7-6(7) 3-6. He also handled Matteo Berrettini and Alexander Blockx on the way through Montreal, which tells me the level is there when he keeps it simple.

The doubt is entirely on the other side of the net. Carreno-Busta retired in Winston-Salem less than a week ago, trailing Adolfo Daniel Vallejo 4-6 0-3, and no reliable word on the injury has followed. He has beaten Tomas Machac on hard this month, so the tennis is alive; the question is whether a 35-year-old counterpuncher can stand up over five sets on legs nobody can vouch for.

Daniil Medvedev — Hugo Gaston

This is the match of the day for me, and not because of the ranking gap. Medvedev's American swing has been a slow leak: beaten by Botic van de Zandschulp, two sets up in feel but not in fact against Brandon Nakashima before losing 7-6(3) 6-7(4) 1-6, and then a trip to Winston-Salem for extra practice that ended with a 5-7 3-6 loss to Martin Damm and a joke about switching to pickleball. He has set the bar where his confidence currently sits: "For me, I just want to find a little bit of my game again and get through a few rounds", he said in French this week (Univers Tennis).

Gaston, meanwhile, arrives having already solved a problem. In the final round of qualifying Colton Smith took the first set 6-1 and looked like ending him; the Frenchman stopped rushing, started changing height and length, and won 1-6 6-4 6-2. That is a small thing on paper and a big thing in practice — a player who found a way mid-match, against a player who has spent a month failing to. Their only previous meeting was Paris indoors in 2021, when Medvedev won 7-6(7) 6-4, which is a different Medvedev and a different Gaston.

Stylistically this is a trap and everyone knows it. Medvedev stands halfway to the fence on return and builds long geometric rallies; Gaston lives on drop shots, lobs and sudden trips to the net, and the drop shot he doesn't hit is as valuable as the one he does. Medvedev's hard-court record this year is still comfortably positive, and over five sets the serve and the sheer depth of his ball should tell. But if he starts arguing with himself in the second set, the crowd will pick a side quickly.

I still think Medvedev wins this, because class over five sets is a stubborn thing and Gaston has three qualifying matches in his legs. I also think it will be uncomfortable, probably four sets, and a set for Gaston somewhere would surprise nobody. This is the day's best candidate for an upset without being my prediction of one.

Miomir Kecmanovic — Denis Shapovalov

The head-to-head is one-sided in a way that borders on comic: Shapovalov has won all five of their recorded meetings, from Winston-Salem and Tokyo in 2019 through Acapulco and Washington to Dallas in February last year, 6-3 6-7(5) 6-3. Four of those were on hard. Kecmanovic keeps showing up and keeps leaving with the same result.

Except the fitness picture inverts the story. Shapovalov hurt his ankle in the Los Cabos final, tried to play Montreal anyway in front of his own crowd and retired: "The body just got worse and the body kept telling me no", he said afterwards, adding that stepping on court at all was probably a mistake (ASAP Sports). He came back in Cincinnati to hammer Adrian Mannarino 6-1 6-4, then led deep in the decider against Rafael Jodar and lost it 5-7 6-4 5-7 — very much this year's Denis, brilliant until the moment the match asks him to close.

Kecmanovic's ceiling is lower but his floor is flatter; he took Jannik Sinner to five at Wimbledon by refusing to shorten rallies. His hard-court year has been a near coin flip, and the plan is obvious: serve into the body, take away Shapovalov's angles, make him hit one more ball on an ankle he'd rather not push off.

Mariano Navone — Novak Djokovic

Djokovic has played exactly one competitive hard-court match recently, and it ended badly: a set up against Thiago Agustin Tirante in Cincinnati, then 6-2 4-6 4-6, undone by heat and humidity aggravating a condition he has spoken about without naming. He has framed the loss as a gift of preparation time and been honest about the limits of that: "If you ask me if I'm prepared, I feel like I am, as best as I can be. But it's different training and then getting out to Arthur Ashe Stadium", he said (US Open).

Navone is a clay player wearing hard-court shoes, and he knows it. His best surface win rate lives on the dirt; on hard he was heavily negative last year and has only edged above even this season, though a win over Valentin Vacherot from a set down suggests he doesn't quit. They have never met. His route to relevance here is heavy topspin into Djokovic's body, long games, and a night that gets sticky.

Djokovic's record in this building is the sort you read twice, and the counter to Navone is straightforward: take the ball early, attack a serve that doesn't intimidate, refuse the endless cross-court exchange. If the body cooperates, this is a night session that finishes before it gets interesting.

Alexander Bublik — Jeff Wolf

Their history is the strangest line on the day: Wolf leads 3-1, with wins in Miami in 2023, Florence in 2022 and Cincinnati qualifying back in 2019, and Bublik's only victory coming on grass at Wimbledon, 6-3 7-6(5) 6-0. Rankings say one thing, the record says another, and both are telling a partial truth.

Wolf is the better story anyway. He lost roughly a year to a right shoulder operation and had to relearn trusting the joint: "After you spend so many days in the gym, on the practice courts, you just crave that competition", he said this summer (Cincinnati Open). He earned his place here through the wild card challenge, winning in Vancouver, and his hard-court results this year have been excellent at the level he's playing.

Bublik's preparation is the oddity. His last five matches were all on clay — three wins, and two losses to Quentin Halys, one of them 7-6(4) 4-6 6-7(5) — and he skipped the big North American hard-court events entirely. He is fresh and he is unrehearsed, and with him those two things sit uneasily together. John Wertheim's summary still fits: "He has so much easy power and can beat anyone when the stars align" (Sports Illustrated).

This one is genuinely murky to me. Bublik at 1.47 is short for a man with no hard-court matches behind him, facing an opponent who has beaten him three times and will have the crowd; equally, if his serve arrives early the match could be over before Wolf finds his range. I'd expect four sets, plenty of games, and I would not be shocked by either name in the result.

The bodies, not the rankings, will decide this day

Three matches today hinge on fitness that nobody can fully verify: Djokovic's tolerance for a humid New York night, Shapovalov's ankle, Carreno-Busta's unnamed problem from Winston-Salem. A fourth, Medvedev against Gaston, hinges on something even less measurable — whether a former champion can spend two hours being teased by drop shots without losing his temper. That is a rich opening day by any standard.

If I could only sit through one, it would be Medvedev's, because the tennis and the psychology are the same thing right now. The precise calls on these five — the numbers, the sides, the totals — belong to the AI cappers on the match pages, and they are rather better at getting specific than I am.