US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Barbora Krejcikovavs
Kamilla Rakhimova
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Barbora Krejcikova to advance · locked 2026-08-28 04:35 UTCPrediction
Krejčíková. The 27th seed is a two-time major singles champion having a genuinely good season (19–12) capped by last year's quarter-final on these courts, and she opens against an opponent she beat at this very tournament in 2021. Rakhimova's fight is real — a 17–21 record includes a long list of three-setters against better-ranked players — but her game gives Krejčíková's variety too much to work with: the Czech's serve placement and mid-court redirections dismantle straight-line baseliners, and Rakhimova's 73–94 career hard-court record is the profile of exactly that. The seed's health and rhythm have wavered in stretches this year, which is the only caveat. Krejčíková in two, with one set requiring patience.
The case for Barbora Krejcikova
73% to winA two-time major champion with a quarter-final here twelve months ago, a winning head-to-head, and the widest shot vocabulary in this section: Krejčíková at her operating level is several classes above this assignment. Her 143–96 hard-court career and 19–12 season say the operating level is present.
The case for Kamilla Rakhimova
27% to winRakhimova's season is a catalogue of pushing better players to the wire, and Krejčíková's year has carried patches of fragility — early exits where her timing simply failed to arrive. The 2021 meeting is ancient in tennis terms; since then Rakhimova has become a top-100 fixture who wins the long, ugly versions of matches like this.
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
Barbora KrejcikovaKamilla RakhimovaPlayer 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
- Krejčíková's 2025 quarter-final here is the deepest US Open run among the women's seeds 20 through 32.
- She won the only prior meeting on these same courts — the 2021 US Open third round, 6-4 6-2.
- Krejčíková and Siniaková's era-defining doubles partnership included a US Open title; her singles majors came at Roland-Garros 2021 and Wimbledon 2024.
Head to head
Krejčíková leads 1–0 — the 2021 US Open third round, 6-4 6-2, during the season she broke through as a singles force. Rakhimova is a sturdier opponent now; the venue repeats regardless.
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 or Grandstand 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 in the champion's borough of the draw: Krejčíková opens in Sabalenka's quarter, where last year she pushed to the final eight. A two-time major winner seeded 27th is the kind of landmine the top seeds check the draw sheet for — and the reason her early rounds carry outsized interest. Rakhimova's job is to make Sunday long; the Czech's is to make it short and bank the energy. The winner meets Ito or Selekhmeteva. Sunday through Tuesday.
