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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Taylah Prestonvs
Alycia Parks
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Alycia Parks to advance · locked 2026-08-28 04:35 UTCPrediction
Parks, narrowly, on serve and setting. The American's 22–24 season is the definition of streaky — she remains capable of out-hitting almost anyone for a set and donating the next — but her serve is the biggest shot in this match by a wide margin, she is at home, and her 57 career tour-level hard-court wins nearly quintuple Preston's dozen. The 20-year-old Australian wildcard has the cleaner technique and the more organized game; her 7–8 season at this level is the résumé of a player still calibrating. First meeting. If Parks's first-serve percentage holds above its season habit, the power settles it; if it dips, Preston's steadiness makes this a genuine coin-flip. Parks in three.
The case for Taylah Preston
45% to winPreston's game has no obvious donation: clean off both wings, mentally tidy, and at 20 already tested by a season of tour-level fields. Parks's error metronome is the most reliable pattern on the other side of the net — absorb the first strike, extend the rally, and the match tilts by itself.
The case for Alycia Parks
55% to winParks's serve and forehand are weapons Preston has rarely faced at full velocity, and home hard courts are where her game has always made most sense. Twice the experience, four times the surface wins, and the kind of shot-making that ends first-round tension in her favor when it lands.
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
Taylah PrestonAlycia ParksPlayer 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
- Parks and Preston have never met — a first-round classic of power against polish, 25 against 20.
- Preston, an Australian wildcard at No. 100, is chasing her first US Open main-draw win in her second appearance.
- The winner faces Chwalińska — the Roland-Garros finalist seeded 20th — or Taylor Townsend in the Round of 64.
Head to head
Never met — Parks's power game and Preston's percentage game get their first exchange of information on 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 between two players auditioning for the same future from different angles — Parks trying to make her power a career rather than a highlight reel, Preston converting a junior pedigree into tour results one wildcard at a time. The section's veterans await: Plíšková's opener sits next door, and the Round of 64 promises the winner either a 2016 finalist or a fellow riser. Sunday through Tuesday; first-round losers bank $140,000.
