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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Sloane Stephens vs Clara Tauson — 6-4 6-1
 Sloane Stephens✓ | 6 | 6 |
 Clara Tauson | 4 | 1 |
Final · Monday, August 31, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Ten unforced errors and no double faults in an hour and sixteen minutes. Stephens, the 2017 champion here, is back in the main draw on a wild card and playing her way up from a ranking that had fallen out of the top thousand, and she gave Tauson almost nothing to work with on Court 17: 79% of her first-serve points won, nineteen winners, four of nine break points taken, 66 points to 45. Tauson, ranked inside the top forty and coming off a Monterrey quarter-final, served five aces and hit thirty unforced errors, and had one break point in the match. It was a first meeting, and one day-two roundup called it the biggest surprise on the schedule. Stephens plays the 11th seed Marta Kostyuk next.
Sloane StephensRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
Round of 128, and the 2017 champion walks back through the gates: Stephens's wildcard is part reward, part dare, and her quietly winning season makes it more than ceremony. Tauson is the type of draw that measures a comeback honestly — power that punishes any drop in intensity. The winner meets Kostyuk or a qualifier in the Round of 64, in a section that funnels toward the top quarter's heavyweights. Sunday through Tuesday; first-round losers bank $140,000.
What we know now
Court: Stadium 17
Match length: 1:16
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.
Tauson, with none of the certainty her ranking edge implies. Stephens at 33, on a wildcard at No. 208, is still the 2017 champion on these courts, and her season — a quietly winning 13–12 — suggests the defensive genius that won that title has one more gear than her ranking admits. Tauson's raw numbers dominate: a decade younger, ranked 166 places higher, with a 94–71 hard-court record built on first-strike power. But her 14–19 season is the tour's most puzzling underperformance, and Stephens's absorb-and-redirect game is specifically engineered to make power hitters play one more ball. First meeting. If Tauson serves well, youth wins in two; if not, the champion's patience makes this the day's likeliest sentimental result. Tauson in three.
The case for Sloane Stephens
40% to winStephens won this tournament by doing exactly what this matchup asks: absorbing bigger hitters until they broke. Her 207 career hard-court wins and a winning 2026 say the craft is intact, the wildcard means zero pressure, and New York has always amplified her best tennis — a champion here is never fully an underdog here.
The case for Clara Tauson
60% to winTauson's power is a category Stephens cannot manufacture answers to when it lands — her serve and flat drives are top-20 caliber even in a losing season, and at 23 the physical edges all run her way. The Dane's underperformance is about consistency, not level; round one against a No. 208 is where level alone usually suffices.
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: Clara Tauson to advance ✗ WRONG
“A decade of age and 166 ranking places — the champion's craft makes it close, but power in form beats patience out of practice.”
Locked 2026-08-28 05:00 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Sloane StephensClara TausonPlayer 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
- Stephens, the 2017 champion, returns on a wildcard at 33 — one of the former US Open champions scattered through the women's draw.
- Tauson's 14–19 season is the field's starkest gap between talent and results; her 94–71 career hard-court record says the level is real.
- First meeting — the 2017 champion has never faced the Dane whose power game mirrors the opponents she famously dismantled that fortnight.
Head to head
Never met — Stephens's championship era and Tauson's rise missed each other entirely. Absorb-and-redirect against first-strike power, chapter one.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
Court & schedule: Stadium 17, 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 2026-08-30)
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.