US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 128
Qinwen Zheng vs Kristina Liutova
Sunday, August 30, 2026 · Round of 128
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Qinwen Zheng to advance · locked 2026-08-29 01:40 UTCPrediction
The best match in this batch, and both players had to qualify to be in it. Zheng is 23, a US Open quarter-finalist in 2024 and 99–53 on hard courts for her career, but ranked 121st after an 11–12 season. Liutova is 16 years old, ranked 125th, and 6–0 at tour level — an unbeaten record with no losses to interpret. Their hard-court Elos are 24 points apart. Experience against an unknown quantity who has not lost a professional match yet: Zheng in three, and it should be worth the ticket.
The case for Qinwen Zheng
57% to winZheng has been to a US Open quarter-final and has 152 career hard-court matches on record against Liutova's six. When a 16-year-old finally meets someone who has played the biggest courts, the level jump is usually where the streak stops.
The case for Kristina Liutova
43% to winLiutova is 6–0 in tour-level matches and 6–0 on hard courts — she has not lost as a professional. At 16 she has no scar tissue, and Zheng's 11–12 season is a long way from the player who made the quarter-finals here two years ago.
Both cases written 2026-08-29, 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.
Tale of the tape
Qinwen ZhengKristina LiutovaPlayer 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 2026-08-28.
The briefing
Storylines
- Both players came through qualifying — a former US Open quarter-finalist and a 16-year-old.
- Liutova is 6–0 in tour-level matches: she has not yet lost as a professional.
- Zheng reached the quarter-finals here in 2024 and is now ranked 121st.
Head to head
They have never met. Liutova has no tour-level losses on record at all.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-28.
Watch: Opening-round coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, including the whip-around channel that only exists in the early rounds. (ESPN press-room release and listings, as of 2026-08-27)
Court & schedule: Not yet assigned. Days one and two of the main draw are on the board; this match falls in the back half of the first round, and the US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-08-28)
Weather: The forecast cooled since the draw: Sunday opens partly sunny near 80°F with a slight shower chance after 2 p.m., and a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms arrives with Sunday night. Monday is similar at 81°F, and the storm odds climb through Tuesday and Wednesday. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs; the field courts wait. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-28)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The Round of 128 is the widest the net ever gets: 64 matches a draw, spread across three days, every seed in action and every qualifier playing the biggest match of the year. This half of the bracket filled in late — qualifying ran a day long after rain pushed the last round to Friday, so these names were still blank slots on draw night. First-round losers leave with $140,000. The winner draws Putintseva or Bencic in the Round of 64.
