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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Aoi Itovs
Oksana Selekhmeteva
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Oksana Selekhmeteva to advance · locked 2026-08-28 04:35 UTCPrediction
Selekhmeteva. The 23-year-old lefty at No. 93 has spent the season consolidating a top-100 breakthrough, and her flat, angle-hunting game holds a clear edge over Ito's improvised, spin-heavy style on a court this quick. Ito's ranking (No. 369) reflects a 4–11 season interrupted rather than a talent ceiling — her hand skills are real and her 23–19 career hard-court record beats her opponent's on percentage — but match sharpness is the currency of first rounds, and Selekhmeteva has three times the 2026 court time. First meeting, both playing for the biggest ranking payday of their seasons. The lefty's consistency should bank it in two competitive sets.
The case for Aoi Ito
35% to winIto's unorthodox game — heavy slice, sudden pace changes, angles nobody practices against — is exactly the profile that ambushes conventional opponents in round one. Her career hard-court record is a winning one, the ranking is an artifact of a stop-start season, and a first US Open brings zero scar tissue to the occasion.
The case for Oksana Selekhmeteva
65% to winSelekhmeteva has played a full season at this level and it shows in the ledger: 13 wins against tour fields, a lefty serve that opens the court, and the patience to let an improviser miss. Match play beats mystery in best-of-three tennis, and she holds a season's worth more of it.
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
Aoi ItoOksana SelekhmetevaPlayer 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
- Both are chasing a first US Open main-draw win — Ito on debut, Selekhmeteva after a first-round exit last year.
- Ito's No. 369 ranking is the second-lowest among the women's resolved matchups — her 4–11 season hides a winning career hard-court record.
- First meeting; the winner draws 27th-seeded Barbora Krejčíková or Rakhimova in the Round of 64.
Head to head
Never met — two players from the same generation whose paths ran through different circuits until this week.
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. (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 at the draw's quiet end: two twenty-somethings playing for a first US Open win and the Round of 64 audience that comes with it — likely against a two-time major champion, with Krejčíková's match next door. For Ito, a debut and a ranking reset; for Selekhmeteva, the season's consolidation test. The first round pays its losers $140,000, women's and men's draws alike — call it the tour's most meaningful consolation prize. Sunday through Tuesday.
