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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Linda Noskova vs Katie Volynets — 7-5 6-1
 Linda Noskova✓ | 7 | 6 |
 Katie Volynets | 5 | 1 |
Final · Monday, August 31, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Scheduled for Court 11, moved by the organisers to Louis Armstrong, and then two games from losing the first set. Noskova was broken three times to trail Volynets 2-5, saved two set points in the ninth game and won five games in a row for 7-5; having turned it she gave the American nine points in the whole second set, breaking twice for 5-0 and converting her first match point in the seventh game. Twenty-eight winners, and ten double faults she did not have to regret. Volynets had won the WTA 125 in Philadelphia the week before — the first tournament played in that city since 2005 — without dropping a set, and won 43% of the points behind her own first serve here. Noskova, 21, is the youngest Wimbledon champion since Kvitova in 2011, has climbed from twelfth to sixth in the world since July and had won two of four matches in the seven weeks since. She got several minutes into her arrival press conference in New York without once saying the word Wimbledon. "I cannot be stuck in my head space at Wimbledon," she said when a reporter pointed it out. "We have a new Grand Slam here."
Linda NoskovaRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128, and the season's newest major champion makes her entrance: Nosková's Wimbledon run in July rearranged the women's hierarchy, and New York now asks the follow-up question every first-time champion eventually faces. Her section is stacked with narrative — the winner meets Tararudee or a qualifier next, but the quarter's gravity runs through Sabalenka, the No. 1 seed the bracket books for the quarter-finals. Volynets gets the first shot at the new champion; somebody had to. Sunday through Tuesday.
What we know now
Court: Louis Armstrong Stadium
Match length: 1:37
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.
Nosková. The reigning Wimbledon champion opens her first major since lifting the trophy — at 21, the youngest at the All England Club since Kvitová in 2011 — and she does it as the sixth seed with a 32–13 season and the cleanest flat power in her generation. Volynets is a home player in good form (26–19) whose scrappy, low-error game has upset seeds before, and the champion's-first-Slam-after syndrome is tennis's most documented wobble. That is the entire case against, and it is not nothing. But Nosková's game travels from grass to hard courts with interest — big serve, early strikes, no topspin discount — and her 93–51 hard-court record at 21 says this surface was always coming to her. Nosková in two competitive sets.
The case for Linda Noskova
78% to winNosková is the Wimbledon champion for a reason that translates: flat, early power that plays even better on hard courts than grass. A 32–13 season, a 6th seeding at 21, and the swagger of a player who just beat the world's best on the sport's biggest lawn — a No. 91's fight is admirable and insufficient.
The case for Katie Volynets
22% to winVolynets is at home, in the best sustained form of her career, and armed with the tour's classic seed-killer profile: return depth, foot speed, and no respect for reputations in round one. The first major after a first Slam title is where champions historically stumble — she is precisely the opponent to make the stumble expensive.
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: Linda Noskova to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The Wimbledon champion's flat power was built for this surface — a 32–13 season answers the post-title-wobble theory before it starts.”
Locked 2026-08-28 05:00 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Linda NoskovaKatie VolynetsPlayer 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
- Nosková opens her first Grand Slam as a major champion — she won Wimbledon in July, the youngest champion there since Kvitová in 2011.
- Her all-Czech Wimbledon final against Muchová was the first major final between two Czech women in the Open Era — both are in this draw.
- Volynets, the Californian at No. 91, arrives with a 26–19 season — her best — and the home slot every American wants: a marquee seed on a big court.
Head to head
Never met — Nosková's rapid rise skipped the rungs where Volynets does her work. The American's first look at the Wimbledon champion's pace comes live.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Louis Armstrong Stadium, Monday 31 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 2026-08-31)
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.