US Open Men's First Round Upset Predictions

With the men's US Open draw officially out, it is now time to make bold predictions and predict upsets that will look foolish within 30 minutes of play beginning on Monday. But, alas, I will still try my best to predict the big upsets that I think will occur in the US Open men's tournament. For the purposes of this post, upset predictions will be made based on non-seeds beating seeds and not on the odds for each match.

US Open Men's First Round Upset Predictions

Damir Dzumhur to beat Pablo Cuevas (27) in four sets: Dzumhur has looked fantastic this week in Winston-Salem, playing in the Final today. He has beaten very solid players this week, defeating players such as Gilles Simon, Hyeon Chung, and Kyle Edmund. Cuevas, on the other hand, has been in very poor form. Pablo has lost five matches in a row and has only played in one hard court tournament this summer, losing in straight sets to Jan-Lennard Struff. What worries me about picking Dzumhur in this matchup is the fact that he could be fatigued. He made the Final of a clay court tournament last week and is in the Final of Winston-Salem this week. On the hot hard courts of Flushing Meadows, he could crack. Still, I like Dzumhur to win this match.

Jordan Thompson to beat Jack Sock (13) in five sets: I really liked how Thompson played in Washington. His match over Bemelmans was thorough domination and then he played Alexander Zverev the closest that anyone played him in Washington that week, losing 7-5 in a third set tiebreak. The fact that Zverev won Washington and Montreal makes his efforts against Alexander even more impressive. Thompson plays that pesky game that annoys opponents, much like Dzumhur. Thompson has also done well recently on the Challenger circuit, making the Final of Binghampton and Vancouver. Sock has lost three of his past four matches and has not been playing well ever since his victory over Milos Raonic in Washington. In addition, when these played before in a Davis Cup match in Australia earlier this year, Thompson won in four sets. And while the crowd should help Jack, I think Thompson style of play bothers Jack greatly and Sock wilts in the New York heat. This match could be similar to the match that Sock played against a similarly styled player in Yuichi Sugita, where Sock lost in straight sets.

So, those are the only seeds I have losing are these two, which obviously is unlikely to occur, but I am just trying to be honest with how I see these games playing out and not just pick upsets for the sake of picking upsets. But obviously, because I picked so few upsets, expect about 10 seeds to be out by the time morning play starts on Tuesday!