New York - 02/09

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Ace Cream's daily newsletter during Masters 1000 and Grand Slams, every morning at 8:30.

Today is Wednesday 2 September, in New York it is 02:30 and it is 20 degrees. Right, off we go.

On the breakfast table

• 🇮🇹 Cobolli comes back from two sets down for the first time in his career
• 🇮🇹 Musetti and Bellucci go through without dropping a set
• 🌧️ Rain postpones Guerrieri's Slam debut
• 🇰🇿 Putintseva knocks out Bencic, the twelfth seed
• 🇫🇷 Monfils wins on his fortieth birthday
• 🇮🇹 Sonego goes down to Zverev only in the fifth, after almost five hours
• 🇮🇹 Today Berrettini meets Navone, the man who knocked out Djokovic

WHAT HAPPENED YESTERDAY:

🇮🇹 Cobolli Comes Back Against Comesaña

Flavio Cobolli beat Francisco Comesaña 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4 in four hours and thirteen minutes, under the closed roof of the Louis Armstrong. For the fifth seed it is the first comeback from two sets down of his career, against an opponent ranked 119 in the world, and in the fifth set he also had to recover a break of serve.

Four hours in the first round are an advance you pay back later, and in a tournament without Sinner the top half of the draw had already complicated itself. Cobolli won the match he tended to lose in previous seasons, and at the ninth attempt from two sets down that counts for more than the scoreline. Then there is the second week, which usually presents the bill to anyone who arrives with too many hours in the legs.

🇮🇹 Musetti And Bellucci Without Dropping A Set

Lorenzo Musetti got past Arthur Fery 6-3, 6-3, 7-5 on the Grandstand, Mattia Bellucci saw off Zsombor Piros 6-4, 6-2, 6-0 on court 10. Neither dropped a set, on a day when the rest of the Italian contingent struggled a good deal more.

Musetti risked something only in the third, where Fery stayed attached until 5-5 before dropping serve. Bellucci went the other way, conceding six games in the first two sets and none in the third. Matches like these are forgotten the next day, which is more or less what the winners need.

🌧️ The Rain Rewrites The Schedule

The rain over New York blocked the outside courts for much of the afternoon: play went ahead only on the Arthur Ashe and the Louis Armstrong, both with the roof closed. Andrea Guerrieri's Slam debut against Alex de Minaur slipped to today, while Francesco Passaro against Jesper de Jong was suspended at 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 for the Italian and 1-1 in the fourth.

Restarting from 1-1 in the fourth the following day forces both to rebuild their rhythm from scratch, and Passaro's set advantage is worth less this morning than it seems, because whoever felt better the night before is almost never whoever feels better the following afternoon. For Guerrieri the postponement means making his Slam debut against de Minaur with another twenty-four hours of waiting on his shoulders. Today's schedule, meanwhile, has loaded up with matches that should already have been filed away.

🇰🇿 Putintseva Knocks Out Bencic

Yulia Putintseva beat Belinda Bencic 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, eliminating the twelfth seed after losing the first set. Around that result the favourites held: Coco Gauff got past Zeynep Sonmez 6-3, 6-4, Elena Rybakina left five games to Thea Frodin, Mirra Andreeva beat Janice Tjen 6-2, 6-2 and Madison Keys saw off Alina Korneeva 7-5, 6-4.

Rybakina was back on court twelve days after the ankle problem that stopped her in Cincinnati and said she was satisfied above all with how she held up in her first match, against an opponent she did not know. Putintseva is the kind of opponent who lengthens the rallies until the other decides to shorten them badly, and Bencic fell for it after going a set up. On a day when everyone else won, it is the only result that really changes a portion of the draw.

WHAT HAPPENED OVERNIGHT:

🇫🇷 Monfils Wins At Forty

Gaël Monfils beat Daniel Vallejo 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-0 on the Louis Armstrong on his fortieth birthday, with 37 winners and eighteen games won across the last three sets. He is the oldest player to win a match at the US Open since Jimmy Connors in 1992, and it is his first Slam win since the first round of Wimbledon 2025. In the second round he faces Learner Tien.

Monfils retires at the end of the season, so this is the last US Open he plays, and the Armstrong crowd sang him happy birthday. Losing the first set 2-6 and then winning three in a row at that pace is a way of managing a match nobody would have credited him with at twenty. The comparison with Connors tells you how rare the number is, much less what it costs to get there.

🇮🇹 Sonego Takes Zverev To Five Sets

Alexander Zverev beat Lorenzo Sonego 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-5, 6-4 in almost five hours, the second match of the night session on the Ashe. The first Slam draw of his career as the top seed opens with the longest match a first round could have handed him.

Sonego won the second and third sets and dragged the top seed all the way to the fifth, where Zverev closed it out 6-4. The German had never lost to him before, and he did not lose this time either, but almost five hours in the first round stay in the legs and the draw does not give them back.

WHAT HAPPENS TODAY:

• Berrettini vs Navone - On court 12, fourth match of the day. Navone knocked Djokovic out in five sets in the first round, and Berrettini inherits the opponent who opened up that part of the draw.
• Paolini vs Stefanini - An all-Italian derby on court 5 from 17:00 Italian time, the kind of match neither of them wanted to find this early.
• Guerrieri vs de Minaur - Court 11, not before 18:30 Italian time. A Slam debut postponed by a day by the rain, against the sixth seed.
• Passaro vs de Jong - Resuming on court 10 from 1-1 in the fourth set, with Passaro two sets to one up, from 20:00 Italian time, after Marozsan-Zheng.
• Pegula vs Kenin - Ashe from 17:30 Italian time. Kenin arrives from the win over Venus Williams in the latest-starting match in the tournament's history.
• Alcaraz vs Faria - Ashe, second match of the night session starting at 01:00 Italian time. The defending champion's second outing after 139 days out.

Further reading

• Cobolli al 2° turno agli US Open: Comesana battuto 3-6, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4
• US Open 2026 LIVE, diretta day 3: Cobolli, Musetti, Sonego, Bellucci, Passaro e Guerrieri
• US Open, programma di mercoledì 2 settembre: derby Paolini-Stefanini, Berrettini trova il giustiziere di Djokovic
• Gael Monfils lights up US Open on 40th birthday
• Rybakina shakes off injury concerns, powers past Frodin at US Open

Enjoy your breakfast and have a good day.

See you tomorrow at 08:30 with TIE-Breakfast