US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Elina Svitolina vs 
Maya Joint
Round of 64
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Elina Svitolina to advance · locked 2026-09-01 01:20 UTCPrediction
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.
Tale of the tape
Elina SvitolinaMaya JointPlayer 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 2026-08-31.
The briefing
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.
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 2026-08-31)
Weather: Rain is the story of the week's opening, and it is forecast to get worse before it clears. Showers and thunderstorms are likely overnight — 72% under a low near 72°F — and Tuesday is the worst day on the board: near 81°F with storms likely through the day, 67%, and again after dark at 64%. Wednesday is the break in it, near 76°F on a 26% chance of showers, with a slight chance of storms returning overnight; Thursday is warm and unsettled again, near 84°F on 53%. Friday is the first clean day of the fortnight — near 82°F and mostly sunny after an early 15%. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-08-31)
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.
