Bu Yunchaokete had less than 24 hours' notice and nothing to lose. The 24-year-old from China, ranked No. 124 and in the draw only because Thanasi Kokkinakis withdrew with an ankle and calf injury, dismantled 12th-seeded Rafael Jódar 6-2, 6-1, 6-1 on Wednesday, one of the most lopsided upsets of a top-15 seed at the US Open in years.
The numbers back up how one-sided it was. Bu won 89 points to Jódar's 51 across one hour and 48 minutes, breaking the 19-year-old Spaniard's serve seven times in 16 chances. Jódar, who had never lost so quickly at a major, made 37 unforced errors against just 15 winners. It was the first tour-level match Bu had won all season and, remarkably, his first Grand Slam match victory in seven major appearances — he had gone 0-6 in Slam openers before Wednesday. Full stats from the match are posted on the ATP Tour's recap.
From Qualifying Loser to Giant-Killer
Bu did not even know he would be playing until Tuesday. He lost in the final round of qualifying to Federico Cinà, then was slotted into the main draw as a lucky loser after Kokkinakis pulled out following his run to the Cincinnati quarterfinals. Less than a day later he was facing Jódar, the breakout story of the men's season, who had won the title in Marrakech, reached the final in Washington and the semifinals in Montreal, and made the quarterfinals at Roland Garros on his way to a career-high ranking of No. 13. None of that carried over. According to ATP Tour reporting, it marked the first time in the Open Era that a lucky loser has beaten a top-15 seed at a Grand Slam — a distinction that reflects just how rare Wednesday's result was, even if such superlatives are difficult to verify with full certainty across five-plus decades of results.
Jódar did not dispute how badly things went. "I'm new on the tour," he said afterward. "There are going to be things like this because I'm new. [I] just try to learn from it so it doesn't happen again."
I'm new on the tour. There are going to be things like this because I'm new. Just try to learn from it so it doesn't happen again.
— Rafael Jódar
A Rough Day for Seeds
Bu's win was the headline of a brutal Wednesday for seeded men. No. 16 Brandon Nakashima was beaten in straight sets by Alex Michelsen, and No. 23 Andrey Rublev fell in three sets to Daniel Mérida Aguilar — three seeds inside the top 16 gone on the same day, a stretch the tournament rarely sees this early. The full men's bracket, including Wednesday's results, is posted on ESPN's US Open bracket page.
Bu's win carried a domestic subplot, too. Earlier the same day, American college player Michael Zheng — a New Jersey native who entered the main draw as a qualifier — beat Hungary's Fábián Marozsán 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 for his first tour-level main-draw victory, a result Yahoo Sports detailed in a report on the local favorite. That pairs him with Bu in the second round: two players who were not supposed to be in the draw's second week meeting to decide who reaches the third round of a major for the first time.
For Bu, ranked outside the top 100 and previously known mainly for a run to the semifinals of the 2024 China Open — where he beat then-world No. 6 Andrey Rublev for his first top-10 win — Wednesday's result is already the biggest of a career built largely on the Challenger tour. He has never advanced past the second round of a major. That will change no matter what happens against Zheng; simply by winning Wednesday, he guaranteed himself a spot in the round of 64 for the first time.
The second-round match is expected to be scheduled for Thursday or Friday at Flushing Meadows, with the winner moving into the tournament's second week for the first time in either player's career.
