Another qualifier, Birrell, will need to beat Olympic silver medallist and Wimbledon semi-finalist Donna Vekic to make the second round.

Alexei Popyrin, who is seeded at a major for the first time thanks to his breakthrough Montreal title triumph, is on a third-round collision course with Novak Djokovic but must first negotiate South Korea’s Soonwoo Kwon.

Popyrin has already locked horns twice this year with Djokovic at slams, taking a set off the Serbian legend at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.

De Minaur is again projected to take on seventh-seeded Pole Hubert Hurkacz in the last 16, as they were at Wimbledon, only for Frenchman Arthur Fils to upset Hurkacz before that match-up eventuated.

The 25-year-old, who will attempt to become the first Australian since Lleyton Hewitt in 2004-05 to make three consecutive major quarter-finals, played doubles at the Paris Olympics with Popyrin.

However, the extent of de Minaur’s singles involvement since Wimbledon is playing at this week’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown event in New York, where he beat Denis Shapovalov in an abbreviated format to advance to the semi-finals.

Thanasi Kokkinakis, Chris O’Connell and James Duckworth have difficult openers against Greek 11th seed Stefanos Tsitsipas, Chile’s No.26 seed Nicolas Jarry and 31st-seeded Italian Flavio Cobolli, respectively.

That trio joined Aleks Vukic and Max Purcell – who will face off in an all-Australian affair – as well as de Minaur, Popyrin, Jordan Thompson, Rinky Hijikata and Adam Walton as direct entrants to the men’s draw.

Wildcard recipient Tristan Schoolkate and qualifier Tu make it a 12-strong men’s contingent. Tu ousted Dutchman Jesper De Jong 3-6, 6-1, 7-5 to punch his ticket to the main draw.

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Hijikata made a shock run to the fourth round last year, but the draw did him no favours, with tough Spaniard Alejandro Davidovich Fokina first-up before a potential showdown with No.9 seed Grigor Dimitrov.

Veterans Daria Saville and Ajla Tomljanovic, 18-year-old wildcard Taylah Preston and qualifiers Joint, Aiava, Hon, Rodionova and Birrell are Australia’s representatives in the women’s draw.

Preston’s US Open debut will be against Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, the 25th seed, while Saville and Tomljanovic drew respective qualifiers Ena Shibahara and Ann Li.

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American-born Joint, 18, was unlucky not to score Tennis Australia’s reciprocal wildcard after slashing her ranking by more than 600 spots this year to a career-high No.136, but qualified, anyway, to put an exclamation mark on her breakout year.

Her 6-2, 6-1 demolition of world No.102 Hailey Baptiste earned her a first-round shot at German Laura Siegemund.

Rodionova swept aside Mananchaya Sawangkaew 6-4, 6-2, Hon overcame the top seed in qualifying, Kamilla Rakhimova, 7-6 (7-4), 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, and Birrell took out 15-year-old American Julieta Pareja 6-3, 6-3.

Another Australia up-and-comer, Talia Gibson, lost her final-round qualifying match 6-3, 6-4 to Spanish world No.115 Marina Bassols Ribera.

The US Open begins in the early hours of Tuesday, and will be broadcast on Nine and Stan.

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