Stefanos Tsitsipas will meet Milos Raonic in the first round of the 2023 US Open. The match will be played on Monday, August 28, 2023.

No. 7 seed Stefanos Tsitsipas begins his 2023 US Open campaign against former Top-10 player Milos Raonic in what surely is one of the toughest first rounds the Greek could have asked for. Tsitsipas has always been vulnerable at this stage of the season. In fact, the final major of the year is his worst-performing Slam, having never advanced beyond the third round stage in all six previous trips to New York. Can he change it this time?

Granted Milos Raonic has been out of action for a considerable amount of time due to injuries, hard courts are his cup of tea and Raonic appears to have struck some gold in his first hardcourt tournament on home soil in Toronto at the start of August, where he secured his first Top-10 win since his comeback. He upset Frances Tiafoe en route to the Round of 16, easily his best achievement of the season. So he cannot entirely be expected to go down without a fight in his first match at the US Open in a while. The big-serving Canadian gave a good account of himself in his last Grand Slam tournament where he pushed Top-20 player Tommy Paul to four sets at Wimbledon. So Stefanos Tsitsipas could have his hands full.

Milos Raonic has a winning head-to-head record over Stefanos Tsitsipas and he’ll be aware of the Greek’s deficiencies in match wins at the US Open. But without being overly sentimental, Tsitsipas should win this match. Playing Toronto wasn’t the best decision for Tsitsipas who admitted to struggling with his sleeping pattern given that he was Western Mexico just a few days before that. It’s not logical to draw any conclusions from those two warm up tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati. Raonic is still in the early stages of his comeback and his body is still not in top shape to challenge the Greek in a best-of-five match. He’ll give it a go though, but we’ll take the the No. 7 seed to come through here.