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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Lilli Tagger vs Tamara Korpatsch — 6-0 7-6(4)
 Lilli Tagger✓ | 6 | 7 |
 Tamara Korpatsch | 0 | 64 |
Final · Monday, August 31, 2026 · Round of 128
Result
Tagger, 18 and playing the first Grand Slam main-draw match of her life, bagelled the German No. 1 and then nearly handed the second set back. Korpatsch held for the first time at 0-4, won five games in a row to lead 5-4, and could not take the set point that came with them; Tagger levelled, and in the tiebreak trailed 1-4 before winning the last six points, the match ending on an ace down the middle. The 2025 junior Roland Garros champion hit 24 winners to 15 and broke five times from twelve chances across 1 hour 56 minutes on Court 13, taking 78 points to 62.
Lilli TaggerRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
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.
What we know now
Court: Court 13
Match length: 1:56
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.
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 — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
My locked pick: Lilli Tagger to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The only meeting went her way in straight sets, on this surface — and the trajectory arrow points one direction.”
Locked 2026-08-28 05:50 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Lilli TaggerTamara KorpatschPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-08-28.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-27.
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.
Court & schedule: Court 13, 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.