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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Sloane Stephensvs
Clara Tauson
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Clara Tauson to advance · locked 2026-08-28 05:00 UTCPrediction
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, quoted to a decimal because false precision is funnier — and tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
Tale of the tape
Sloane StephensClara TausonPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-27.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
The briefing
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.
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. A former champion's return profiles for a featured court. (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, 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.
Sloane StephensClara TausonRound of 128
Sloane StephensClara TausonRound of 64