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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Ann Livs
Antonia Ruzic
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Ann Li to advance · locked 2026-08-28 05:00 UTCPrediction
Li. The 29th seed earned her number the hard way — a fourth round here last year, the best fortnight of her career — and her clean, flat hitting off both wings is the classic American hard-court template. Her 19–21 season is the honest asterisk; she has spent the year losing tight matches to good players. Ružić has spent it doing roughly the same one tier down (16–21), and their only meeting — Mérida 2024 — was a 6-2 6-2 Li stroll on this surface. The Croatian's game is growing and her flat backhand can hold its own in these conditions, but nothing in the data suggests the gap has closed enough. Li in two, with the home crowd smoothing the tense moments.
The case for Ann Li
63% to winLi's fourth round here in 2025 is the reason she is seeded and Ružić is not, and the only head-to-head meeting was one-way traffic on this exact surface. At home, with a game built for the court and a crowd that lifted her through last year's run, the seed's floor is comfortably above the challenger's ceiling on current evidence.
The case for Antonia Ruzic
37% to winRužić is 23, improving, and has spent the season taking sets off players of Li's class — the 6-2 6-2 from Mérida predates most of her development. Li's year is 19–21 with a habit of losing coin-flip sets; win one early and the American is playing uphill in front of her own crowd.
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
Ann LiAntonia RuzicPlayer 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
- Li's fourth round here in 2025 — her career-best Slam — is the résumé behind her 29th seeding; she opens its defense at home.
- Li won the only meeting 6-2 6-2 in Mérida in 2024, on hard courts.
- Ružić is chasing her first US Open main-draw win after a first-round exit on debut last year.
Head to head
Li leads 1–0 from Mérida 2024 — 6-2 6-2, on hard courts, in a match whose shape (flat American pace through a developing baseline game) is the default projection for Sunday.
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 with last year's surprise fortnight on the line: Li's 2025 run to the second week built her seeding, and defending it starts against an improving opponent she has so far kept at arm's length. The winner draws Gibson or the 2019 quarter-finalist Vekić in the Round of 64. This section's seeds are all within upset range of each other — which makes every opener a positioning battle. Sunday through Tuesday.
