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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Ekaterina Alexandrova vs McCartney Kessler — 6-2 6-2
| Ekaterina Alexandrova✓ | 6 | 6 |
 McCartney Kessler | 2 | 2 |
Final · Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Kessler landed 71% of her first serves and won 56% of them; Alexandrova landed 49% and won 83%. That gap ran through the whole hour — the 18th seed won 64% of her second-serve points to Kessler's 27%, took four of five break points to none of three, and finished 63 points to 37. Two sets, 66 minutes, no real argument.
Rows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128 with a seed on the clock: Alexandrova's fourth-round points from 2025 come due in a season where wins have been scarce, and Kessler is precisely the kind of home-crowd opponent who collects distressed assets. The winner meets Birrell or Marcinko in the Round of 64 — this pocket of the third quarter is the draw's most level playing field. Sunday through Tuesday.
What we know now
What I said beforehand
The preview, frozen before the first serve. Clearly dated, never rewritten — that's the deal that makes the pick worth anything.
Alexandrova — a seed in form-trouble, but the right kind of matchup to fix it. The 18th seed's 15–20 season is the worst record among the women's top-20 seeds, yet her flat, early-strike game made the fourth round here just last year, and she beat Kessler comfortably in their only meeting, on hard courts in Ningbo. Kessler is the local hope with a solid-if-streaky year and a 47–35 hard-court career that says she belongs; her path to the upset runs through Alexandrova's serve wobbling under scoreboard pressure, which this season it often has. But when the seed's timing is on, she hits through opponents of exactly Kessler's profile. Alexandrova in three, with at least one stretch where the upset looks live.
The case for Ekaterina Alexandrova
62% to winAlexandrova's fourth round here twelve months ago and her 186–135 career hard-court record say the level is a class above this pairing, and the Ningbo meeting (6-3 6-3) showed how directly her pace goes through Kessler's defenses. Seeds with bad seasons still win round one far more often than narrative suggests.
The case for McCartney Kessler
38% to winKessler is at home, in a rhythm-based matchup against a seed whose season has been one long timing problem — 15–20 is not a slump, it is a trend. Her compact game travels well under pressure, and the American crowd plus a shaky favorite is the oldest upset recipe in this tournament's book.
Both cases written 2026-08-28, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
My locked pick: Ekaterina Alexandrova to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The class and the head-to-head both point up — a slumping seed is still a seed against an opponent she has already beaten cleanly.”
Locked 2026-08-28 05:00 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Player vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Storylines
- Alexandrova won the only meeting 6-3 6-3 in Ningbo last autumn — on Kessler's preferred surface.
- The 18th seed made the fourth round here in 2025; her 15–20 record this season is the weakest among the women's top-20 seeds.
- Kessler is one of the American women threaded through this section — a home upset here would be her first career win over a top-20 seed at a major.
Head to head
Alexandrova leads 1–0 from Ningbo 2025, 6-3 6-3 — a hard-court meeting that went exactly the way the power gap suggested it would.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Court 11, Sunday 30 August. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before; this one is on the board. (Official US Open order of play, as of 2026-08-28)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — was forecast at 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that could not be pushed back. The rain came in the morning and stopped before the final, which Ashe played with its roof open. It cleared from there: 15% overnight, 15% Monday, then dry and sunny. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.