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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Amanda Anisimova vs Lilli Tagger — 6-3 3-6 6-1
 Amanda Anisimova✓ | 6 | 3 | 6 |
 Lilli Tagger | 3 | 6 | 1 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
Lilli Tagger is 18, ranked 49th, and had never played a top-ten opponent. She broke Amanda Anisimova in the first game, lost the set anyway, and then won five games in a row to take the second — the pivot a twelve-minute game in which Anisimova reached game point four times, once with an ace, and lost it. The third set turned on a game just as long: Tagger serving at 0-3, saving six break points and holding a game point of her own before double-faulting away the seventh. Anisimova took the last five games. She hit thirty winners to fifteen and made thirty unforced errors to nineteen, which is the shape of a match that took her two hours and one minute. Tagger won the Roland Garros junior title in 2025 and has gone from 963rd in the world two years ago to a career-high 49th; in July she won Prague, beating Barbora Krejcikova on the way, and on Monday she won her first Grand Slam main-draw match. Anisimova, seeded 10, was the runner-up here last year. She now plays Anastasia Potapova, whose win earlier on Thursday had put an all-Austrian third round on the table.
Amanda AnisimovaRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 64 halves the draw again: 32 women's matches across Wednesday and Thursday, every one of them between players who have already won here this week. The seeds who came through the opening round now meet opponents with form behind them rather than a ranking.
Round of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
Court: Grandstand
Match length: 2:01
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.
Anisimova spent her 25th birthday hitting 25 winners and 72 minutes on court, which is the shortest women's match of the day and the least stressed. It was not entirely comfortable — Ashlyn Krueger earned eleven break points and took one — but 11 of 13 at the net and five breaks from nine chances is a finalist's opener. Tagger is 18, playing her first US Open, and beat Tamara Korpatsch 6-0 7-6(4) in 1 hour 56 minutes: a bagel, then a second set she had to win from a 1-4 deficit in the tiebreak with an ace on match point. At 6′1″ and ranked No. 49 in her first full season she is the most interesting unseeded player in this quarter, and 18–11 on hard courts is a small but healthy record. The ratings say 73–27, and the gap is experience rather than ball-striking: Anisimova was the runner-up here twelve months ago.
The case for Amanda Anisimova
73% to winAnisimova reached the final here last year, is ranked No. 10, and won her opener 6-1 6-3 in 72 minutes — the quickest women's win of the day. She saved ten of the eleven break points she faced, won 11 of her 13 net points, and hit 25 winners to Krueger's nine. Her 123–76 on hard courts is nearly seven times Tagger's volume, and a first-time main-draw player meeting a Grand Slam finalist on a show court is the specific step this round exists to test.
The case for Lilli Tagger
27% to winTagger is 18, 6′1″, ranked No. 49 in her first full season, and won her opening match at a major with a 6-0 first set and a tiebreak she took from 1-4 down, finishing on an ace. She has no history at this tournament to weigh her down and nothing about her ranking suggests she should be an underdog by 46 points of Elo. Anisimova faced eleven break points on Monday and some of those games she was a point from losing.
Both cases written 2026-08-31, 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: Amanda Anisimova to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Last year's finalist, coming off the fastest win of the day, against a player in her first US Open.”
Locked 2026-08-31 20:50 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Amanda AnisimovaLilli TaggerPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-02.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-31.
Storylines
- Anisimova turned 25 on the day and beat Ashlyn Krueger 6-1 6-3 in 72 minutes, hitting 25 winners.
- She faced eleven break points and saved ten of them.
- Tagger, 18 and in her first US Open, beat Tamara Korpatsch 6-0 7-6(4), taking the tiebreak from 1-4 down and finishing with an ace on match point.
- Anisimova was the US Open runner-up in 2025; Tagger had never played a main-draw match here before this week.
- First meeting: they have never played.
Head to head
They have never met at tour level.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-08-31.
Court & schedule: Grandstand, Thursday 3 September. 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 2026-09-02)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — is 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that cannot be pushed back. Ashe closes its roof and plays on. It clears overnight: 20% Sunday night, 20% Monday, then dry and sunny from Tuesday. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.