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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Iga Swiatek vs 
Nadia Podoroska
Round of 64
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Iga Swiatek to advance · locked 2026-09-01 01:20 UTCPrediction
Swiatek, and the interest is in whether Podoroska can make it long. The 2022 champion held all nine of her service games against Wang Xiyu, conceded no break points at all, landed 74% of her first serves and won 80% of them, and was off Louis Armstrong in 88 minutes. She arrived off the Toronto title and a Cincinnati semi-final and has 240 career hard-court wins against 67 losses. Podoroska is in the draw on a protected ranking as Laura Siegemund's replacement, is the world No. 449, and had not won a Grand Slam main-draw match in two years and eight months until Monday, when she beat Simona Waltert 4-6 7-6(5) 6-3 by six points across 2 hours 48 minutes — a win built on Waltert's 63 unforced errors rather than her own 15 winners. The last time these two played, Podoroska was in the Roland Garros semi-finals as a qualifier and lost 6-2 6-1. Six years on, she is the only South American left in the draw and Swiatek has won six majors.
The case for Iga Swiatek
94% to winSwiatek is a six-time major champion who won this tournament in 2022, is 240-67 on hard courts, and gave an opponent ranked 80th in the world nothing at all on Monday — nine holds, no break points faced, one double fault. She has beaten Podoroska before, at a Grand Slam, for the loss of three games, and comes in on the back of a WTA 1000 title in Toronto.
The case for Nadia Podoroska
6% to winPodoroska has already done the improbable once this week: ranked 449th, in the draw only because someone else withdrew, and a set down to a player 360 places above her, she won anyway. She was a Roland Garros semi-finalist in 2020 and the game that got her there has not disappeared, it has been injured. Swiatek's opener was cheap enough that she has not yet had to solve anything, and 2 hours 48 minutes of grinding is exactly the kind of match Podoroska will want.
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
Iga SwiatekNadia PodoroskaPlayer 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
- Swiatek held all nine of her service games against Wang Xiyu and did not face a break point in the match.
- Podoroska is in the main draw on a protected ranking as Laura Siegemund's replacement and is the world No. 449.
- Monday's 4-6 7-6(5) 6-3 over Simona Waltert was Podoroska's first Grand Slam main-draw win in two years and eight months; she won it by six points, 111 to 105.
- Their only meeting was the 2020 Roland Garros semi-final, which Swiatek won 6-2 6-1 on her way to the title.
- Podoroska is the only South American left in the women's singles draw.
Head to head
One meeting, in the 2020 Roland Garros semi-final, which Swiatek won 6-2 6-1 en route to her first major title.
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.
Round of 128
Round of 32