US Open: Cobolli's draw comes down entirely to the fourth round

Flavio Cobolli arrives at Flushing Meadows as world No. 6, his best ranking, and the No. 5 seed: a spot gained by the withdrawal of Jannik Sinner, sidelined by a right knee problem. The draw doesn't put a seed in front of him before the third round. Then the bill arrives all at once, in the fourth round, against Taylor Fritz. That's exactly the round Cobolli has never reached in New York.

First week: a draw that only asks him to manage

The first round brings Francisco Comesaña, an Argentine outside the top 100, raised on clay and never truly at ease on hard courts. He rallies long, gets everything back in play, forces his opponent to hit three or four extra balls per point. The risk is length.

The second round puts him against the winner of an all-qualifier matchup. In the third, he'll face Alexander Blockx, the No. 28 seed, or Shang Juncheng. Blockx is the hardest variable to read: 193 centimeters tall, a Madrid semifinal in the spring after beating Ruud on clay, and a serve that remains his best weapon. What he lacks is Slam mileage, and on that front Cobolli today has far more.

For a player who has stopped twice at the third round in New York (2024, beaten by Medvedev; 2025, retirement against Musetti), this part of the draw matters mostly as energy management: four days to reach the fourth round with his legs intact.

The fourth round: Fritz and the problem of time

Fritz is the ninth seed and comes off an uneven season, unlocked in Washington with his first title of 2026 against Rafael Jódar, 7-6(2), 6-4. His blueprint on American hard courts is simple and hard to break down: heavy first serve, forehand on the second shot, rally closed early.

The technical question for Cobolli is the same one posed by Arthur Fils in the Cincinnati semifinal, where he lost 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and seven minutes. Fils stepped inside the baseline on return whenever he could, and he dictated the length of the rallies. Cobolli works when he can build the point: take the center of the court calmly, then turn onto the forehand. When the opponent dictates the length instead, that forehand arrives out of time.

In July, in the Wimbledon quarter-finals, Arthur Fery had reached the same result by a different route: No. 114 and a wild card, he beat him 6-4, 7-6(4), 6-0 by attacking the second serve and coming to net, where he won 22 points out of 29. Cobolli finished that match with 41 unforced errors to 15.

The quarter-final, and a recent precedent

From the top half of his quarter comes Félix Auger-Aliassime, the third seed, whom Cobolli beat in the Roland Garros quarter-finals on the way to his first Slam final. On hard courts the Canadian is a different player, with more free points off the serve, but that precedent carries weight: Cobolli won't walk on court just hoping to steal a set.

The alternative is Jakub Menšík, the No. 17 seed, who on Wednesday night, paired with Karolína Muchová, beat Cobolli and Belinda Bencic in the mixed doubles final, 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 in the deciding match tie-break. A full match on Ashe with that serve on the other side is a useful reminder.

Beyond that would be Alexander Zverev (who beat him in Paris in five sets), Alex de Minaur or Lorenzo Musetti. A semifinal means entering territory where Cobolli, on hard courts, doesn't yet have a measure of himself.

The forecast, and what could upend it

Through the third round, Cobolli is a clear favorite. In the fourth round he starts as a slight underdog against Fritz, more for conditions and style than for ranking. The quarter-final is within reach mainly in the scenario where Menšík comes through rather than Auger-Aliassime.

The condition that flips the forecast comes down to one thing: the first serve. If Fritz's first-serve percentage holds at Cincinnati levels, he loses the advantage of the first shot and the match slides into neutral rallies, where the better forehand belongs to the Italian. If his first serve drops below his August average, the fourth round ends in three sets, and the second week stays a place Cobolli, in New York, still hasn't reached.