The fourth round of the US Open gets under way on Sunday and our Andy Schooler has previewed the action.

Adrian Mannarino v Jiri Lehecka

I’ve been talking up Mannarino quite a bit on these pages of late but for good reason.

His renaissance has been remarkable.

This time last year he was in a rut which saw him win one of 17 matches and retirement seemed to be rapidly approaching.

But, ahead of this match, the Frenchman has won 19 of 24 at all levels and is loving the fairly slick court conditions in which he has often thrived during his long career.

He got a tad lucky in the last round when Ben Shelton damaged his shoulder and had to quit, although again Mannarino put up a great fight when the pair were both fully fit.

Next comes a first meeting with Lehecka, who is going along nicely in New York, although he has dropped sets against Borna Coric and Tomas Martin Etcheverry so far.

The Czech beat Raphael Collignon in straight sets last time out but that list of opponents isn’t great and I’d suggest this should be easily his biggest test of the tournament.

What is very interesting is Lehecka’s awful record against left-handers so far this season – he’s lost seven of his last eight such matches with many of those opponents enjoying strong serving performances.

I can see Mannarino joining those ranks, with his big swinger able to really target the Lehecka backhand, especially on the ad side. He will also come forward more than most Lehecka opponents and that aspect has the potential to trouble the favourite.

Lehecka has been serving well for some time now – remember he made the final at Queen’s during the grasscourt season – and he’s played plenty of tie-breaks in the last few months. Indeed, there has been at least one in nine of his last 14 matches.

With Mannarino in fine form and Lehecka having been involved in a lot of tight sets, I think the angle here is to back the Frenchman on the game handicap.

Back him with a 5.5-game start.

Novak Djokovic v Jan-Lennard Struff

Struff has impressed with back-to-back wins over Holger Rune and Frances Tiafoe and has shown again that when he’s injury-free, he’s still capable of producing some excellent tennis.

Having seen him deliver a fine display to beat Tiafoe in straight sets (I’ll ignore the pitiful game when he attempted to serve out the match), my initial thought was that he has a good chance of pushing Djokovic here by winning at least a set.

After all, the Serb has dropped sets to two of his three matches so far – and saved set point in the other – while he was also nursing a back injury earlier in his previous match against Cameron Norrie.

However, then I saw the pair’s head-to-head.

It stands at 7-0 to Djokovic, who has won six of those matches in straight sets. Struff’s flat-hitting can rush opponents but it hasn’t caused Djokovic much, if any, grief.

When they met here in 2020 – the first year of the Laykold courts – Struff won only seven games.

Now, I think it’s fair to say that Djokovic is not at the level now that he was back then and, given Struff’s form, you can make an argument for why things might be different this time in what will be their first meeting in four years.

However, I’m not ready to pull the trigger on this bet at 4/5, especially given Djokovic really improved in the second half of his match with Norrie, with the serve really hitting its spots. Maybe you will be braver…

Posted at 0710 BST on 31/08/25

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