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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Yuliia Starodubtsevavs
Ella Seidel
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Yuliia Starodubtseva to advance · locked 2026-08-28 06:40 UTCPrediction
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, quoted to a decimal because false precision is funnier — and tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Yuliia StarodubtsevaElla SeidelPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-27.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
The briefing
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.
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 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.
Yuliia StarodubtsevaElla SeidelRound of 128
Yuliia StarodubtsevaElla SeidelRound of 64