US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Lilli Taggervs
Tamara Korpatsch
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Lilli Tagger to advance · locked 2026-08-28 05:50 UTCPrediction
Tagger. At 18 the Austrian is the youngest woman in the field's resolved matchups and very possibly its steepest riser — No. 48 with an 18–9 career hard-court record, a one-handed backhand that has already become a tour curiosity, and a straight-sets win over exactly this opponent last autumn in Jiujiang. Korpatsch at 31 is having a fine season (20–13) built on discipline and depth, and her flat, patient game will test whether the teenager's shot tolerance matches her shot-making. The 6-3 6-4 from October says it did then, on this surface. First US Opens are nervy; first US Opens with a head-to-head win in the bag are less so. Tagger in two, with one service wobble somewhere.
The case for Lilli Tagger
66% to winTagger beat Korpatsch in straight sets ten months ago, her hard-court numbers (18–9) are the best percentage in this section, and her one-handed backhand gives opponents a look nobody on the practice schedule replicates. Eighteen-year-olds this composed do not stay No. 48 long.
The case for Tamara Korpatsch
34% to winKorpatsch's 20–13 season is the record of a professional at her peak discipline, and teenagers at their first Slam have historically donated exactly the tight first sets her game is built to collect. The Jiujiang loss was a small final-stretch event; a New York opening round is a different pressure instrument.
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
Lilli TaggerTamara KorpatschPlayer 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
- Tagger, 18, is the youngest woman among the resolved first-round matchups — making her US Open debut at No. 48 with a one-handed backhand.
- She won the only meeting, 6-3 6-4 in Jiujiang last October, on hard courts.
- The winner faces 10th-seeded Amanda Anisimova — last year's finalist here — or Krueger in the Round of 64.
Head to head
Tagger leads 1–0 — Jiujiang, October 2025, 6-3 6-4 on hard courts. The teenager has already answered the style question once.
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 with a future-watch flag on it: Tagger's debut is the kind scouts circle — 18, top-50, a one-hander, and a head-to-head win over the veteran across the net. The reward for surviving is enormous exposure: last year's finalist Anisimova likely waits in the Round of 64. Korpatsch's disciplined season makes her the ideal examiner of whether the hype translates under Slam lights. Sunday through Tuesday.
