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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Maria Sakkari vs Yuliia Starodubtseva — 1-6 7-6(4) 6-2
 Yuliia Starodubtseva✓ | 1 | 7 | 6 |
 Maria Sakkari | 6 | 64 | 2 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
Sakkari hit 36 winners to 17, served seven aces to none, won three more points than her opponent, and lost. She took the first set 6-1 in 31 minutes and served for the match at 5-4 in the second, in a game that ran ten minutes: 30-0 up, pulled back to 30-40, one break point saved, then three match points at advantage, all three lost — the last of them to a double fault. Starodubtseva broke for 5-5, won the first four points of the tiebreak, and took it 7-4. She broke to open the decider, held to love, broke again for 4-1, and — according to the only Ukrainian report filed on the match — was cramping from 5-2 before serving it out from 30-15 down. It is the first time she has been past the first round in New York, and it equals her best result at a major. The draw has handed her Elena Rybakina in the third round: the player she beat from a set down at Roland Garros in May, in the biggest win of her career.
Maria SakkariRows 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.
Maria SakkariYuliia Starodubtseva✓Round of 128
Round of 64
What we know now
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.
Sakkari, narrowly, and the two first rounds are the argument on both sides. Sakkari lost the first set 6-2 to a qualifier ranked 187th, went 0-4 down in the second, and needed two hours and thirteen minutes and four set points in a twelfth game to save herself; Starodubtseva won 6-2 6-2 in seventy-eight minutes with one double fault and never faced a break point she could not answer. On the day, the Ukrainian was much the better player. Across a career, it is not close: Sakkari is 206-156 on hard courts, a US Open semi-finalist in 2021, and has beaten better than anyone in this section. But she is 19-18 on the season and has been beatable all year, and Starodubtseva at No. 58 is the best-ranked opponent she has faced since Cincinnati. They have never met, which removes the one thing that usually settles a match like this.
The case for Maria Sakkari
65% to winSakkari has been to the semi-finals here and is 206-156 on hard courts; Starodubtseva is 40-42. She also just proved she can win a match she was losing — down a set and 0-4, she won 37 of the next 59 points and did not drop another set. Experience of exactly this stage of exactly this tournament is worth something, and the 32nd seed has more of it than everyone left in her quarter bar the top two.
The case for Yuliia Starodubtseva
35% to winStarodubtseva is the higher-percentage player right now: 23-21 on the season against Sakkari's 19-18, ranked No. 58, and coming off a first round that cost her nothing — seventy-eight minutes, one double fault, 74% of her second-serve points won. Sakkari spent two hours and thirteen minutes surviving a qualifier. This is Starodubtseva's first second round in New York at the third attempt, and the third Ukrainian through this year; she has no reason to be intimidated by a seed whose season has been ordinary.
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.
My locked pick: Maria Sakkari to advance ✗ WRONG
“The hard-court record and the semi-final pedigree against a much cleaner first round from the Ukrainian — the narrowest of this batch.”
Locked 2026-09-01 22:35 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Maria SakkariYuliia StarodubtsevaPlayer 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 2026-09-01.
Storylines
- They have never played each other.
- Sakkari came from a set and 0-4 down to beat the qualifier Robin Montgomery 2-6 7-5 6-2 in two hours and thirteen minutes.
- Starodubtseva beat Ella Seidel 6-2 6-2 in seventy-eight minutes, hitting one double fault to seven.
- It is Starodubtseva's third US Open main draw and the first time she has reached the second round here.
- Sakkari reached the semi-finals at this tournament in 2021 and is 19-18 for the season.
Head to head
They have never met at tour level.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
Court & schedule: Court 5, 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.