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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Anastasia Potapova vs 
Leolia Jeanjean
Round of 64
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Anastasia Potapova to advance · locked 2026-09-02 10:30 UTCPrediction
Potapova, and the first rounds point the same way as the rankings. The 24th seed hit 32 winners to three and ten aces to none in beating the lucky loser Darja Semenistaja 6-2 6-2 in 75 minutes — her first Grand Slam match under the Austrian flag, four years after she last competed under one, having taken citizenship in December. She is 25, ranked 25th, and 130-111 on hard courts. Jeanjean is the better story and the longer shot. She is 31, ranked 127th, in the draw on the wild card the French federation trades with the USTA, and on Tuesday she won a match at the US Open for the first time at her third attempt — beating the qualifier Arantxa Rus 7-6(6) 6-2 after saving a set point in the tiebreak, and doing it while being out-hit 23 winners to 13. That is the pattern of her tennis: she takes what she is given rather than making it, converting all three break points she earned. Against a server who lands ten aces in two sets there may not be three to earn.
The case for Anastasia Potapova
75% to winPotapova is a hundred places higher, seeded, and playing the freest tennis of her year: 32 winners to three is not a scoreline you produce by accident, and the ten aces matter against an opponent whose whole game is built on returning. She has been to the third round here before, in 2024, and the surface rewards the flatter, earlier ball. Jeanjean has won twelve tour-level matches all season and twenty-six on hard courts in her career.
The case for Leolia Jeanjean
25% to winJeanjean beat a qualifier who had already won three matches on these courts and did it on the days that matter — the tiebreak she was a point from losing, the game she was broken to love and broke straight back. She is 31, came back from a knee that dislocated three ways at 14 and an American college career, and has nothing about a big stage that frightens her; her only Grand Slam third round came from beating a seed at Roland Garros. Potapova's 33 unforced errors against Semenistaja are the door: if the winners stop landing, the free points stop with them.
Both cases written 2026-09-02, 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
Anastasia PotapovaLeolia JeanjeanPlayer 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 2026-09-02.
The briefing
Storylines
- They have never met.
- Potapova's first round was her first Grand Slam match for Austria; she announced in December that her citizenship had come through, ending four years as a neutral athlete.
- Potapova beat the lucky loser Darja Semenistaja 6-2 6-2, hitting 32 winners to three and ten aces to none.
- Jeanjean won her first US Open match at the third attempt, beating the qualifier Arantxa Rus 7-6(6) 6-2 after saving a set point at 6-5 in the tiebreak.
- Jeanjean is in the draw on the FFT's reciprocal wild card; her only Grand Slam third round is Roland-Garros 2022.
Head to head
They have never met, at tour level or below.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-02.
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 2026-09-02)
Weather: Wednesday is the break in the weather the schedule has been waiting for: mostly cloudy, near 75°F, and a shower chance of only 19% until the light goes. The night session is where it turns — showers and thunderstorms at 69% on a low near 71°F. Thursday is the unsettled day, warm at 82°F with showers and thunderstorms likely at 60%, easing to 52% overnight. Then Friday breaks clean: near 82°F and mostly sunny on 8%, the first dry day of the fortnight, with Saturday sunny at 78°F. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-02)
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