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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Elise Mertens vs 
Maria Timofeeva
Round of 64
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Elise Mertens to advance · locked 2026-09-01 23:40 UTCPrediction
A rematch of a Wimbledon second round nine weeks old, and the shape of that match is the best guide to this one. Timofeeva won the first set 6-2 and then took three games in the next two, losing 2-6 6-3 6-0 — she was the better player for forty minutes and could not sustain it. Nothing since has changed the underlying arithmetic: Mertens is ranked 20th and has been inside the top 30 for most of a decade, Timofeeva is 86th and 15-16 for the season. But Mertens is not arriving fresh. She lost the Monterrey final to Diane Parry two days before the tournament began and said publicly she was not fully fit, and she then needed an hour and 48 minutes to beat the 107th-ranked Kaitlin Quevedo in straight sets while being outhit 24 winners to 19. Timofeeva's first round was the more convincing performance of the two — 26 winners to 11 against the qualifier Tamara Zidansek, six breaks from ten chances — though she was also broken four times and served for it a game early. Mertens by the same route as at Wimbledon: not the first set, but the two after it.
The case for Elise Mertens
71% to winMertens has won the only meeting, has the seeding, and has the record: a Wimbledon quarter-final in July at 30 — her fourth at a major and her first since 2020 — plus two US Open quarter-finals of her own and a doubles title on these courts. She won 79% of her first-serve points against Quevedo and gave up a single break point in the match. Timofeeva has never played a US Open main draw before this week, and second rounds at Slams are where a 20th-ranked player's baseline usually tells.
The case for Maria Timofeeva
29% to winTimofeeva has already beaten Mertens over a set this year and knows the match is winnable — at Wimbledon she took the opener 6-2 before it turned. At 22 she is eight years younger over what is likely to be a long, humid afternoon, and against Zidansek she hit 26 winners to 11 and won 80 points to 61. Mertens has played a tour final and a first round in the space of four days, said before the tournament that she was not fully fit, and has never been past the quarter-finals here.
Both cases written 2026-09-01, 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
Elise MertensMaria TimofeevaPlayer 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 2026-09-01.
The briefing
Storylines
- One previous meeting: Mertens won the Wimbledon second round this year 2-6 6-3 6-0, losing the first set and then all but one game of the last two.
- Mertens arrived in New York two days after losing the Monterrey final to Diane Parry, and said beforehand she was not fully fit.
- Mertens beat Kaitlin Quevedo 6-4 6-4 in an hour and 48 minutes, winning 79% of her first-serve points while being outhit 24 winners to 19.
- Timofeeva beat the qualifier Tamara Zidansek 6-3 7-5, hitting 26 winners to 11 and converting six break points from ten.
- Timofeeva is at her first US Open; Mertens is at her tenth, with quarter-finals here in 2019 and 2020 and the 2019 doubles title.
Head to head
One meeting, in the Wimbledon second round on 29 June 2026: Mertens won 2-6 6-3 6-0. This is their first on a hard court.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
Watch: Second-round coverage runs across ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC, with ESPN Deportes in Spanish — and every court streams in the ESPN app, which is where a match away from the two show courts will live. (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, and this match has not reached the board yet. (Official US Open order-of-play release cadence, as of 2026-09-01)
Weather: Tonight is the last of the wet weather and the worst of it: showers and thunderstorms at 84% before the sky clears to mostly cloudy on a low near 71°F. Wednesday is the break the tournament has been waiting for — near 75°F on an 18% chance of a shower — though storms creep back after dark at 65%. Thursday is the unsettled one, warm at 81°F with showers and thunderstorms likely at 65% and 53% overnight. Friday turns: near 82°F and mostly sunny on 10%, the first clean day of the fortnight, with Saturday better still. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-01)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
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 32