By Cole Gallagher / September 3, 2026
US Open 2026 · Men’s Singles Second Round · Thursday, September 3 · Louis Armstrong Stadium, USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, NY · Hard Court
🎾 Felix Auger-Aliassime vs Karen Khachanov 🎾
Second on Louis Armstrong Stadium. Start times move with the daily order of play.
Canada’s highest-ranked man is one win from the second week’s doorstep, and the opponent standing in the way is a former top-ten player who has done this to him before. Felix Auger-Aliassime, the third seed, meets Karen Khachanov in the US Open second round with a head-to-head that is genuinely level at 2-2. This is not the routine assignment the seedings suggest. Compare the books first in our top betting sites guide.
Odds Comparison
| Sportsbook | Auger-Aliassime | Khachanov |
| Sports Interaction | Check Odds → | Check Odds → |
| Betovo | Check Odds → | Check Odds → |
| Bet365 | Check Odds → | Check Odds → |
| Tonybet | Check Odds → | Check Odds → |
| Betway | Check Odds → | Check Odds → |
Total Games (Over/Under)
Set Betting (Correct Score in Sets)
Player Analysis
Felix Auger-Aliassime
The Montrealer arrives as the third seed and with the most useful kind of recent history: he reached the semifinals here in 2025, which means he knows exactly what a deep New York fortnight demands, and it also means he is defending a very large pile of ranking points. That second part matters for the read on him. There is no drifting through this draw for a player with that much to protect.
His opener was a scrap rather than a statement. He got past Rinky Hijikata 7-5, 4-6, 6-3, 7-5, hitting 17 aces and landing 66 per cent of first serves, which is the profile of a man whose serve is working and whose return games come in bursts. He converted six of 13 break points in that match, and the tidier version of that number is what separates a four-setter from a straight-sets win. He is 26, he is 7-3 across his last ten matches, and his career hard-court record sits at 188-106.
Key Storyline: The third seed is defending semifinal points from 2025 in a men’s draw that has already lost Novak Djokovic
Karen Khachanov
Khachanov is the least appealing kind of unseeded opponent: a 30-year-old with nine career titles, a Paris Masters 1000 trophy, and a US Open semifinal already on the résumé across eleven appearances at this event. He is ranked in the fifties now, down from the top ten twelve months ago, but a slide in the rankings is not the same thing as a slide in ball-striking. At 198cm he serves from an angle that few players enjoy returning, and his career hard-court record of 202-155 is built on exactly these conditions.
His first round was the more emphatic of the two. He dismantled Roman Andres Burruchaga 6-3, 6-0, 6-1 in 95 minutes and, remarkably, converted all seven break points he earned. The caveat is that he landed only 51 per cent of first serves and hit just four aces in three sets, which is a much thinner platform against a returner of Auger-Aliassime’s quality. He is 4-6 in his last ten matches.
Key Storyline: A former world top-ten player and US Open semifinalist who has beaten Auger-Aliassime as recently as last year
Key Betting Angles
The head-to-head is the number the market keeps under-weighting. These two have met four times and split them 2-2, with the hard-court subset level at 1-1. Their most recent meeting came at Halle in June 2025 on grass, where Khachanov won 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in 100 minutes. Grass is not this surface and fifteen months is a long time in tennis, but a 2-2 ledger is still evidence that the Canadian does not simply run through this opponent.
Best-of-five is the structural point in Auger-Aliassime’s favour. Khachanov’s route to an upset almost certainly needs him to hold serve at a rate his first-round numbers do not yet support across four or five sets. That combination — a clear favourite who is unlikely to be cleanly outplayed, against an opponent good enough to steal a set — is what pushes the value away from the match-winner line and toward set betting and the total games market.
The wider context also matters. Djokovic went out in the first round, the field is missing the injured world No. 1, and the top half of this draw has thinned considerably. Anyone building a round-by-round position on Auger-Aliassime is doing so in a tournament where the road just got shorter.
Our Prediction
Cole’s Pick: Felix Auger-Aliassime to win in four sets
The serving numbers, the surface, the form line and the five-set format all point one way. What keeps this off the straight-sets price is a level head-to-head and an opponent who was ranked ninth in the world a year ago and has not forgotten how to hit through a court. Expect Khachanov to take one set on the back of a hot serving patch, and expect the Canadian to be markedly the better player from the middle of the third onward.
Confidence: high on the match winner, medium on the four-set scoreline
Best Bets
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Cole Gallagher covers soccer betting for WorldCupBetting.ca, specialising in match predictions, odds analysis and tournament futures. Based in Toronto, he has followed the Canadian men’s national team since their 2022 qualifying campaign and brings a line-shopping, data-first approach to every pick.