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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Coco Gauffvs
Zeynep Sonmez
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Coco Gauff to advance · locked 2026-08-28 06:15 UTCPrediction
Gauff. The fourth seed arrives as the Cincinnati champion — the tune-up title, won two weeks ago — with a 41–13 season, two majors on the shelf including this one in 2023, and the fastest legs in the sport still setting her floor. Sönmez is a worthy first opponent: the Turkish No. 52's 29–19 season is honest tour production and her flat ball-striking beat real fields all summer. But the gap here is structural. Gauff's serve — the stat line's one recurring question — is the only door, and Sönmez's return game is not built to force it. The champion of 2023 opens as the tournament's form pick behind only the top two; her Cincinnati fortnight suggests the serve wobbles have quieted at the right time. Gauff in two.
The case for Coco Gauff
89% to winGauff is the 2023 champion here, the reigning Cincinnati champion, and the owner of a 41–13 season at 22 — with the best court coverage in the women's game and a 194–76 hard-court record. Her floor wins this match even on a bad serving day; her ceiling ended the tune-up with a trophy two weeks ago.
The case for Zeynep Sonmez
11% to winSönmez arrives in the best form of her career — 29 wins, a game with no fear of pace, and the freedom of an opponent nobody gives a chance. Gauff's double-fault clusters remain the tour's best-documented vulnerability; camp on the second serve and swing, because there is nothing to lose and one set changes everything.
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
Coco GauffZeynep SonmezPlayer 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
- Gauff won the Cincinnati Open two weeks ago — the hard-court tune-up title — and opens in New York as the 2023 champion and fourth seed.
- Her two majors (US Open 2023, Roland-Garros 2025) came at 19 and 21; at 22 she is already the veteran of the draw's youth movement.
- Sönmez, the Turkish No. 52, brings a 29-win season into her first meeting with a top-five player at a major.
Head to head
Never met — Gauff's top-five orbit and Sönmez's climb hadn't crossed. The first look comes with the largest audience either has played to this year.
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. Gauff's openers are an Arthur Ashe fixture, day or night. (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, and the home game begins: Gauff — the 2023 champion, fresh off the Cincinnati title — opens the campaign American tennis measures its summers by. Her quarter is the bracket's showpiece: the seedings point toward Andreeva, the Roland-Garros champion, in the quarter-finals, with the Kasatkina–Badosa survivor first. Sönmez gets the Ashe debut nobody requests and everybody remembers. Sunday through Tuesday.
