US Open: Learner Tien Is Growing Up Fast—and the Draw Is Beginning to Open
September 4, 2026 · Rich Benvin
US Open: Learner Tien Is Growing Up Fast—and the Draw Is Beginning to Open
The second round of the US Open produced something more interesting than a collection of winners and losers.
It produced signals.
Learner Tien showed emotional maturity beyond his age. Taylor Fritz delivered one of the tournament’s most decisive performances. Alexander Zverev survived another physical marathon—but raised questions about how much energy he is spending too early. Madison Keys escaped from the edge. Coco Gauff handled a dangerous opponent. And several highly ranked men disappeared from a draw that suddenly looks much less predictable.
This is where the US Open begins to change.
The first few days introduce the players.
The third round begins revealing who might actually matter during the second week.
Learner Tien just gave us another major signal
Learner Tien defeated Gaël Monfils 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 inside Louis Armstrong Stadium to reach the third round, ending what Monfils has said will be his final Grand Slam appearance. Tien has now reached the third round at three majors this season and will next face No. 17 seed Jakub Menšík.
I like this result even more than Tien’s commanding first-round victory over Nuno Borges.
Why?
Because this match carried emotion.
A beloved veteran’s farewell.
A crowd hoping for one more Monfils spectacle.
A 40-year-old opponent attempting to extend one of tennis’s most entertaining careers for another night.
Tien did not get pulled into the show.
He respected Monfils without surrendering control of the match. He allowed the occasion to belong emotionally to the Frenchman while making sure the tennis belonged to him.
Maturity in tennis often looks like refusing to participate in the opponent’s preferred emotional story.
That is a significant skill for a 20-year-old.
Young players frequently become distracted by everything surrounding the match:
- The reputation of the opponent
- The energy of the crowd
- The importance of the occasion
- The desire to produce memorable shots
- The feeling that they are supposed to play a particular role
Tien remained remarkably clear about his role.
He was there to win.
That sounds obvious, but in New York—against Monfils, on his farewell night—it was not easy.
Tien–Menšík is a fascinating contrast
Menšík brings much more direct firepower.
Tien brings:
return quality
court sense
consistency
left-handed geometry
anticipation
problem-solving
Menšík will want the match to feel immediate. He wants his serve and first strike to determine the point before Tien can begin rearranging the geometry.
Tien wants to add one more decision.
One more change of direction.
One more uncomfortable ball.
One more opportunity for Menšík to overplay.
The most important question will be:
Can Tien consistently make Menšík play the third ball?
Big hitters love:
serve → short return → attack
Tien must turn enough points into:
serve → neutral return → another ball
Once the rally moves beyond the first clean strike, Tien’s intelligence begins to acquire value.
He does not need to neutralize every first serve. He needs to prevent Menšík from feeling that every service point belongs to him automatically.
I would also watch Tien’s left-handed serve into the Menšík backhand. If he can pull Menšík toward the doubles alley and then redirect through the open court, he can make the bigger man defend laterally rather than simply hit through the middle.
Tien does not overpower opponents. He gradually removes the conditions under which they feel powerful.
That is why this matchup is so revealing.
Carlos Alcaraz–Yibing Wu will test the speed of the comeback
Defending champion Carlos Alcaraz faces Yibing Wu in the third round after recovering from a slow start to defeat Jaime Faria 4-6, 6-0, 6-3, 6-2. Wu advanced with a straight-sets victory over James Duckworth. Their only previous meeting, in Shanghai in 2024, was competitive: Alcaraz won 7-6(5), 6-3.
After wrist problems interrupted Alcaraz’s season, each round represents another stage in his competitive recovery.
Wu is an interesting test because he can take the ball early and flatten exchanges.
That means Alcaraz’s wrist may be tested differently.
Not necessarily through endless physical rallies.
Through reaction speed, compressed preparation and repeated high-pace contact.
Against a player who takes time away, Alcaraz may not always have the luxury of loading the forehand exactly as he wants. He will need to absorb pace, improvise and change direction from uncomfortable positions.
I would watch:
Forehand acceleration under pressure
Is Alcaraz releasing the racquet naturally when rushed?
Return positioning
Does he move forward and challenge Wu’s second serve, or give himself extra space?
Direction changes
Is he willing to redirect the forehand down the line, or does he remain safer crosscourt?
Tactical freedom
Is he choosing shots because they are correct—or because they feel safest for the wrist?
The early signs have been encouraging. The official US Open assessment after the Faria victory was that the speed and punch had returned to Alcaraz’s groundstrokes and serve.
But returning to competition and returning to complete freedom are different things.
A player is truly back when strategy stops being organized around the body part that was hurt.
If Alcaraz begins playing instinctively again—accelerating without hesitation, improvising under pressure and changing direction freely—then he becomes one of the tournament’s most dangerous players.
Shelton–Shapovalov may come down to who tolerates ordinary tennis longer
Ben Shelton meets Denis Shapovalov in one of the most entertaining third-round matchups.
Both are left-handed. Both possess spectacular attacking weapons. Both can transform a neutral point with one swing.
Shelton enters with a 4-0 career record against Shapovalov, although three of their four meetings have required a deciding set and all but one included at least one tiebreak. Shelton also produced a tournament-leading 148 mph serve during his four-set victory over Hubert Hurkacz.
That makes the obvious temptation:
attack first
But the real advantage may belong to the player who can stay neutral longer without becoming impatient.
When two explosive shot-makers meet, spectacular offense often cancels itself out. Each player expects the other to produce brilliance.
The differentiators become less glamorous:
second-serve quality
return depth
backhand stability
neutral-ball tolerance
error management
score awareness
Shapovalov’s one-handed backhand creates another tactical pressure point. Shelton can use the left-handed slider out wide in the ad court, pull Shapovalov beyond the sideline and attack the next ball into the open forehand corner.
Shapovalov, meanwhile, must avoid feeling that every Shelton second serve requires an immediate winner. A deep, controlled return may be more valuable than a spectacular return attempted too early.
When both players can hit winners, the match often goes to the player more comfortable hitting nothing special for three extra balls.
That is a valuable recreational-tennis lesson too.
You do not always have to win the point with your best shot.
Sometimes you win by refusing to miss before your opponent becomes uncomfortable.
Taylor Fritz sent the most emphatic American message
Taylor Fritz defeated Mattia Bellucci 6-0, 6-1, 6-1, losing only two games and advancing to face No. 24 seed Francisco Cerúndolo. Cerúndolo needed five sets to defeat Jan-Lennard Struff, recovering for a 5-7, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Fritz’s performance matters because it was efficient.
Grand Slam success is partly about winning matches.
It is also about controlling the physical price of winning them.
While some contenders are spending four or five hours escaping early rounds, Fritz moved through his second round with minimal emotional and physical taxation.
Cerúndolo will present a different problem. He is much more comfortable constructing rallies, defending from behind the baseline and making opponents hit repeatedly through the court.
The tactical question for Fritz is whether he can maintain his aggression without rushing.
He should have advantages on serve and first-strike tennis, but Cerúndolo becomes dangerous if Fritz allows the match to settle into extended forehand patterns.
The best Grand Slam performances do more than advance the player. They preserve the player who will be needed three rounds later.
Fritz has accomplished that so far.
Alexander Zverev is surviving—but spending too much
Top seed Alexander Zverev survived Quentin Halys 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-7(3), 6-3 in four hours and 33 minutes.
That followed a first-round match lasting nearly five hours, meaning Zverev has already spent more than nine hours on court through only two rounds. He next faces No. 25 seed Alejandro Tabilo.
There are two ways to interpret this.
The positive interpretation is that Zverev is resilient. He has survived without his best tennis and handled critical moments better than his opponents.
The concern is tournament economics.
Five-set survival creates confidence, but it also creates debt:
- Physical debt
- Recovery debt
- Concentration debt
- Serving-load debt
- Emotional debt
That debt may not become visible immediately.
A player can recover enough to win the next match—and still feel the accumulated cost in a quarterfinal or semifinal.
At a major, the scoreboard tells you who advanced. Time on court tells you what advancing cost.
Against Tabilo, Zverev needs something more than another victory.
He needs a shorter day.
The men’s draw is beginning to open
Thursday removed several major names.
Karen Khachanov defeated No. 3 seed Félix Auger-Aliassime 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2, 6-2, with Auger-Aliassime reporting dizziness and problems with his vision during the match.
Botic van de Zandschulp eliminated No. 6 Alex de Minaur 6-4, 7-5, 6-2.
World No. 123 Dane Sweeny produced another major surprise, defeating No. 13 Lorenzo Musetti 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2. Sweeny is now the lowest-ranked player remaining in either singles draw.
These results matter beyond the individual upsets.
They change the psychology of the players who remain.
A section of the draw that once looked guarded by a Top 10 opponent may suddenly be occupied by a qualifier, a wildcard or an unseeded player experiencing the best week of his career.
That creates opportunity—but also pressure.
The established player thinks:
I should reach the quarterfinal now.
The outsider thinks:
Why not me?
Those are very different emotional positions.
The favorite begins protecting an opportunity.
The outsider begins attacking one.
Coco Gauff passed a much harder test than the ranking suggested
Coco Gauff defeated Paula Badosa 6-4, 7-6(5) to reach the third round for the fifth consecutive year.
Badosa entered ranked No. 87, but that number reflected injuries more than ability. She had previously reached No. 2 in the world and carried a 5-3 head-to-head advantage over Gauff into the match.
That makes this a valuable win for Gauff.
She was not simply defeating a lower-ranked opponent. She was defeating a player with enough quality—and enough history against her—to create doubt.
Gauff’s greatest advantage remains that she can win without every part of her game functioning perfectly. Her movement, defensive range and competitive resilience give her alternative routes through difficult matches.
That is essential at a major.
Champions are not the players who avoid uncomfortable matches. They are the players with enough identities to survive them.
Gauff now faces Cristina Bucșa in the third round, with the broader women’s draw still extremely competitive.
Madison Keys escaped—and that can change a tournament
Madison Keys recovered from a set down to defeat Anna Bondar 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(5).
The dramatic part came in the deciding 10-point tiebreak. Keys trailed 3-5 and then won the final seven points of the match. She next faces Zheng Qinwen.
A comeback like that can have two effects.
It can expose vulnerability.
Or it can release a player from fear.
Once a player has stood close to elimination and survived, the tournament sometimes begins to feel different. The pressure of protecting a perfect path disappears. Everything after that can feel like borrowed time.
Keys must still manage the volatility of her power. Against Zheng, she cannot allow aggression to become impatience.
But she has already passed one of the most important tests in New York:
Can you play your best tennis when the tournament is almost gone?
For seven consecutive points, she did.
Osaka, Swiatek and the increasingly crowded women’s race
Naomi Osaka advanced by defeating doubles world No. 1 Katerina Siniakova 6-2, 5-7, 6-2. Iga Swiatek beat Nadia Podoroska 6-3, 6-2, while Amanda Anisimova overcame Lilli Tagger 6-3, 3-6, 6-1. Alexandra Eala also continued her impressive run with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Oleksandra Oliynykova.
The women’s tournament does not currently feel organized around one inevitable finalist.
Aryna Sabalenka remains the two-time defending champion, but Gauff, Swiatek, Jessica Pegula and Elena Rybakina are all still capable of leaving New York as the world No. 1.
That ranking race adds another layer to the tournament.
Players are not merely chasing the trophy.
They are competing for control of the next chapter of women’s tennis.
More third-round matchups worth watching
Jessica Pegula vs. Leylah Fernandez
Pegula has reached the third round without dropping a set, but Fernandez has already demonstrated that the New York atmosphere can elevate her. The 2021 finalist is comfortable turning matches into emotional, crowd-driven contests.
Pegula’s challenge is to keep the match orderly:
high first-serve percentage
deep returns
early control of the middle
no unnecessary exchanges with the crowd’s energy
Fernandez wants turbulence. Pegula wants structure.
Frances Tiafoe vs. Valentin Vacherot
No. 11 seed Tiafoe faces No. 22 Valentin Vacherot for the first time.
Tiafoe survived a five-set first round before producing a more controlled straight-sets victory over Rei Sakamoto. Vacherot, making his US Open main-draw debut, has dropped only one set through two matches.
For Tiafoe, the danger is playing the occasion instead of the opponent.
The New York crowd gives him energy, but it can also tempt him into trying to create a performance instead of constructing a victory.
Tommy Paul vs. Alexander Bublik
This is a contest between Paul’s athletic structure and Bublik’s creative disruption.
Paul wants patterns.
Bublik wants uncertainty.
Paul must avoid becoming emotionally irritated by underarm serves, changes of pace, sudden net approaches or seemingly casual shot selection. Bublik is most dangerous when an opponent begins reacting to his personality instead of the ball.
Against unpredictable players, emotional discipline becomes part of tactical discipline.
Stefanos Tsitsipas vs. Jiří Lehečka
Tsitsipas survived a difficult four-set encounter with Lloyd Harris, while Lehečka advanced in straight sets.
This matchup will likely revolve around the Tsitsipas backhand. Lehečka can strike aggressively through that side and then use the resulting short ball to take over with his forehand.
Tsitsipas must prevent his court position from drifting progressively backward.
If he gives up the baseline, Lehečka can make the one-handed backhand absorb pace all evening.
Monfils’ farewell says something important about sports culture
Monfils ends his Grand Slam career after 22 years, with nearly 600 tour-level victories, a career-high ranking of No. 6 and major semifinals at Roland Garros in 2008 and the US Open in 2016. He finishes with a 131-70 Grand Slam record and more major-match victories than any other Frenchman.
He never won a Grand Slam title.
Yet he leaves as one of the most recognizable and loved players of his generation.
That reminds us that athletic legacy is not purely:
titles + ranking + prize money
It can also include:
style
joy
innovation
connection
imagination
memory
Some players expand the record book.
Others expand the audience’s understanding of what the sport can feel like.
Monfils did the second.
He made defense theatrical. He made movement look impossible. He turned ordinary points into shared experiences and occasionally treated a tennis court like a stage on which athleticism, humor and improvisation could coexist with serious competition.
There were times when that instinct may have cost him efficiency.
But it also made him unforgettable.
Sports are competition, but culture is what people remember after the score disappears.
Monfils created culture.
And long after people forget the score of his final match, they will remember how it felt to watch him play.
Tags: Learner Tien, Monfils, New York, tennis, tennis results, US Open
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