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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Yuliia Starodubtseva vs Ella Seidel — 6-2 6-2
 Yuliia Starodubtseva✓ | 6 | 6 |
 Ella Seidel | 2 | 2 |
Final · Tuesday, September 1, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Seidel never broke serve, never really threatened to, and the German news agency's word for it was chancenlos — without a chance. Starodubtseva broke for 2-1 in the first set, was pegged back, then won three games in a row to take it, and opened the second by breaking twice for 4-0. She won 74% of the points behind her second serve to Seidel's 36%, made one double fault to seven, and finished in an hour and eighteen minutes. It was her third US Open main draw and the first time she has reached the second round here; she is the third Ukrainian through this year, after Marta Kostyuk and Elina Svitolina. Seidel, 21, was on her main-draw debut in New York and is still looking for a first Grand Slam first-round win. The two had met once before, at a $100,000 event in Portugal in 2024, with the same result. Starodubtseva now plays Maria Sakkari.
Yuliia StarodubtsevaRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128 among the field's quiet strivers: a first US Open win awaits either Starodubtseva (0-for-1 here) or the debutante Seidel, with Sakkari's pocket of the draw supplying the Round of 64 opponent. In Rybakina's quarter, surviving anonymously is a strategy — the seeds will thin the neighborhood soon enough. Sunday through Tuesday.
What we know now
Court: Court 13
Match length: 1:18
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.
Starodubtseva. The Ukrainian at No. 74 brings the season's better ledger (21–19 against 8–21) and the steadier profile: a full year of tour-level matches, an even hard-court career, and the kind of disciplined, flat hitting that makes opponents earn everything. Seidel at 21 has the higher long-term ceiling — her 38–29 career hard-court percentage actually edges Starodubtseva's — but her 2026 has been a losing grind, and a US Open debut against a player with nothing exploitable is a hard place to reverse a season's momentum. The German's power can take a set on a hot serving day; the Ukrainian's consistency should take the other two. Starodubtseva in three.
The case for Yuliia Starodubtseva
61% to winStarodubtseva's 21-win season is the durability argument — she has played and beaten this tier all year, and her error-light baseline game forces a struggling opponent to produce winners in volume. Nothing in Seidel's 8–21 suggests the volume is there.
The case for Ella Seidel
39% to winSeidel's surface numbers (38–29 on hard courts) are better than her ranking, her age curve points up, and debuts concentrate some players wonderfully. The German's first-strike pace is the biggest weapon in the match — if her first serve lands, the season's record stops mattering for an afternoon.
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: Yuliia Starodubtseva to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Twenty-one wins of season rhythm against eight — steadiness beats upside in round one.”
Locked 2026-08-28 06:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Yuliia StarodubtsevaElla SeidelPlayer 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
- Starodubtseva is chasing her first US Open main-draw win after a first-round exit last year.
- Seidel, 21, is making her US Open debut in a season that has run 8–21 — her career hard-court percentage says better days are banked.
- First meeting; the winner faces Sakkari or a qualifier in the Round of 64.
Head to head
Never met — two players a ranking tier apart whose careers are moving in opposite directions this season.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Court 13, 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.