US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Ekaterina Alexandrovavs
McCartney Kessler
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Ekaterina Alexandrova to advance · locked 2026-08-28 05:00 UTCPrediction
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, quoted to a decimal because false precision is funnier — and tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Player vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-27.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
The briefing
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.
Watch: Opening-round coverage starts Sunday at 11 a.m. ET across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, including a whip-around channel for the early rounds. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned — the US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before, so day-one courts land the night of 29 August. This one profiles as a field-court match with a home crowd behind Kessler. (US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-08-27)
Weather: The opening window looks kind: mostly sunny and 85–86°F Sunday and Monday, with thunderstorm chances only creeping in on Tuesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs if the sky turns; the field courts wait it out. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-27)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
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.
