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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Maria Sakkari vs Robin Montgomery — 2-6 7-5 6-2
 Maria Sakkari✓ | 2 | 7 | 6 |
 Robin Montgomery | 6 | 5 | 2 |
Final · Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Montgomery won ten of eleven games across the middle of this match and lost it. The American qualifier took the first set 6-2 — Sakkari saved four break points in the third game and was broken anyway, then led 40-0 in the fifth and lost five points in a row — and went 4-0 up in the second. From there Sakkari won 37 of the next 59 points. She stopped the run at 4-1, broke for 4-2, levelled at 4-4, and needed four set points in a long twelfth game on the Montgomery serve to take the set 7-5. The third was a formality by comparison: a break for 2-1, another for 4-1, and a first match point converted after two hours and thirteen minutes. Montgomery, 22 and ranked No. 187, finished with twenty-three winners to Sakkari's eighteen and forty-eight unforced errors to twenty-eight, which is the arithmetic of the collapse. Sakkari, seeded 32, plays Yuliia Starodubtseva next, with Elena Rybakina the likely reward in the third round.
Maria SakkariRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 128 is the widest the net ever gets: 64 matches a draw, spread across three days, every seed in action and every qualifier playing the biggest match of the year. This half of the bracket filled in late — qualifying ran a day long after rain pushed the last round to Friday, so these names were still blank slots on draw night. First-round losers leave with $140,000. The winner draws Starodubtseva or Seidel in the Round of 64.
What we know now
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.
Sakkari is the 32nd seed and a 2021 semi-finalist here, 19–17 this season with 361 career hard-court matches; Montgomery is a 21-year-old left-handed American qualifier ranked 187th, 12–5 on the season. The form line is closer than the seeding — Montgomery has the better winning percentage this year — but the level and the venue history are not. Sakkari in three, and the left-handedness will make one of them awkward.
The case for Maria Sakkari
74% to winThirty-second seed, a US Open semi-finalist, and 361 career hard-court matches to Montgomery's 45. Sakkari's fitness in long rallies is a specific problem for a 21-year-old in a first-round three-setter.
The case for Robin Montgomery
26% to winMontgomery is 12–5 this season against Sakkari's 19–17, left-handed, American, and has three qualifying wins on these courts. Sakkari's ranking has slid to 33rd for a reason, and a seeded player defending expectation is exactly what a home qualifier wants to meet.
Both cases written 2026-08-29, 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: Maria Sakkari to advance ✓ RIGHT
“A former semi-finalist and 32nd seed with 361 career hard-court matches against a qualifier with 45.”
Locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Maria SakkariRobin MontgomeryPlayer 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 2026-08-28.
Storylines
- Sakkari reached the semi-finals here in 2021, her best Grand Slam result.
- Montgomery, 21, is a left-handed American through qualifying — and 12–5 on the season.
- Montgomery's winning percentage this year is better than the seed's.
Head to head
They have never met.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Court & schedule: Court 12, Tuesday 1 September. 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 2026-08-30)
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.