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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Barbora Krejcikova vs Kamilla Rakhimova — 7-6(4) 6-2
 Kamilla Rakhimova✓ | 7 | 6 |
 Barbora Krejcikova | 64 | 2 |
Final · Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Krejcikova saved six match points. Rakhimova took the seventh, along with the last five games of the match, to send the first seeded player out of the women's draw. She said afterwards that she had watched Krejcikova save eight match points in her previous match and had been trying not to think about it. The numbers underneath: Krejcikova landed the higher share of first serves, 54% to 49%, and won far fewer of them, 61% to 72%. Rakhimova hit eight winners in two sets to the 27th seed's 22 and made 26 unforced errors to her 41 — a win built almost entirely on the other player's error count. Ranked 92nd coming in, she is into the second round at a third consecutive major.
Barbora KrejcikovaRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
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.
What we know now
Court: Stadium 17
Match length: 1:53
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
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.
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 — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
My locked pick: Barbora Krejcikova to advance ✗ WRONG
“Two majors, last year's quarter-final here, and a head-to-head win on these courts — class and craft over grit.”
Locked 2026-08-28 04:35 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Barbora KrejcikovaKamilla RakhimovaPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
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.
Court & schedule: Stadium 17, 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.