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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Elina Svitolina vs Maya Joint — 6-2 6-7(6) 6-4
 Elina Svitolina✓ | 6 | 66 | 6 |
 Maya Joint | 2 | 7 | 4 |
Final · Wednesday, September 2, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
Elina Svitolina had five match points before she needed a sixth. The ninth seed took the first four games and the opening set in 26 minutes, breaking every time she asked; Maya Joint did not hold serve in it at all. The second went the other way and then some — level on points at 41-all, Joint holding from 5-6 down to force a tiebreak, and Svitolina, 4-1 ahead in it and a point from the match at 6-5, losing the last three to drop it 8-6. In the decider she led 4-1, was pulled back to 4-3, then held four more match points on Joint's serve at 5-3, at 40-15 twice, at 40-30 and on advantage, and took none of them. She served out to love instead, in a match the day's rain had pushed back some three hours and shunted off the Grandstand onto Court 5. It ends the singles fortnight of the last Australian woman in the draw: Joint is 20, lost ten first-round matches in a row between Melbourne and Paris this year, and then beat Serena Williams at Wimbledon. She is not finished here — she and Hao-Ching Chan meet Serena and Venus Williams in the women's doubles first round.
Elina SvitolinaRows 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
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.
Svitolina, comfortably, unless the gap between these two seasons has stopped meaning anything. She is 42-15 for the year, ranked 9th, and beat Solana Sierra 6-1 6-2 in 52 minutes on Sunday — the fastest match of the opening day — winning 92% of the points behind her first serve and giving up one break point in the whole hour. Joint's win was the better story and the harder work: down a set to Liudmila Samsonova, who had beaten her in both previous meetings including three weeks ago in Toronto, she landed 68% of her first serves against Samsonova's 48% and took four of five break points to win 3-6 6-2 6-2. That is a 20-year-old ranked 72nd and 9-20 for the season finding something. The problem is that Svitolina is a former semi-finalist here, 313-161 on hard courts for her career, and the least likely player in this quarter to lose a rally she should win. They have never met.
The case for Elina Svitolina
86% to winSvitolina is 42-15 this season, has 313 career hard-court wins, reached the semi-finals here in 2019, and needed 52 minutes to win her opener while conceding one break point. She has been the most consistent player in this half of the draw all year, and consistency is exactly what beats a 20-year-old having a good week.
The case for Maya Joint
14% to winJoint has just beaten a player ranked 27 places above her who had won both previous meetings, and did it from a set down by fixing her serve — 68% of first serves in against Samsonova's 48%, four break points from five. She is 20, has nothing to lose, and reached the second round here in each of the last two years. Svitolina's opener was so short that she has barely been tested; the first genuinely close set of her tournament is still to come.
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: Elina Svitolina to advance ✓ RIGHT
“A 52-minute opener, 42 wins this season and 313 career hard-court wins against a 20-year-old who is 9-20 for the year.”
Locked 2026-09-01 01:20 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Elina SvitolinaMaya JointPlayer 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
- Svitolina's 6-1 6-2 win over Solana Sierra took 52 minutes, the quickest match of the opening day, and she won 92% of her first-serve points.
- Joint came from a set down to beat Liudmila Samsonova, who had won both their previous meetings, the last of them three weeks ago in the Toronto third round.
- Joint landed 68% of her first serves to Samsonova's 48% and converted four of five break points.
- Svitolina is 42-15 for the season with 313 career hard-court wins and a US Open semi-final in 2019; Joint is 9-20 for the season.
- 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: Court 5, Wednesday 2 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.