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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 64
Qinwen Zheng vs Yulia Putintseva — 6-4 2-6 6-1
 Qinwen Zheng✓ | 6 | 2 | 6 |
 Yulia Putintseva | 4 | 6 | 1 |
Final · Thursday, September 3, 2026 · Round of 64
Result
Zheng is in this draw as a qualifier. A year ago she was ranked seventh in the world; she came to New York at 121st with an 11-13 season behind her, out of the top 100 after months of an elbow injury that required surgery last autumn, playing her first Grand Slam qualifying since the 2022 Australian Open. She got through it on Court 18 in front of a mostly Chinese crowd, finishing a rain-suspended final round from 6-4 2-5 down and dropping onto her back at match point. The US Open's app made Putintseva the favourite here, 59-41. Zheng won the first set from 5-2 after being pulled back to 5-4, lost the second as Putintseva took four games in a row from 1-1, then won six of the last seven games. The numbers are odd enough to state: she won 88 points to 85 and the match by nine games, landed 48% of her first serves and won 87% of them, won 30% of her second, and hit 31 winners against 52 unforced errors. Putintseva, who had beaten the 12th seed Belinda Bencic in the first round, made 33 unforced errors and won 12 points at the net. It is Zheng's fourth US Open third round; she was a quarter-finalist here in 2023 and 2024. Madison Keys is next.
Qinwen ZhengRows 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.
Zheng, and the ranking beside her name is the least useful number in this match. She is here as a qualifier at No. 121, which is what a season interrupted looks like rather than what she is: a US Open quarter-finalist in 2024 and 102-54 on hard courts for her career. Putintseva has beaten her twice, both on clay, one of them a retirement, and neither tells you much about a hard court. What Putintseva does bring is Tuesday. She took out the 12th seed by refusing to hit a ball hard — lobs, slices, drop shots, a fastest serve of 100 mph — and Bencic double-faulted nine times trying to make something happen. That is exactly the pattern that has troubled Zheng, whose game is built on power and who came from a set down against a 16-year-old to get here. This is the closest of the second-round matches in this quarter, and the winner is whoever is more comfortable with a rally that has no shape.
The case for Qinwen Zheng
60% to winZheng has been to the quarter-finals of this tournament and is 102-54 on hard courts; Putintseva is 226-216. A ranking of 121 and a route through qualifying reflect a season of fourteen wins and thirteen losses, not the ceiling. She also came through a first round she was losing, beating Kristina Liutova 4-6 6-3 6-1, which is the kind of match a player in her position needed.
The case for Yulia Putintseva
40% to winPutintseva leads the head-to-head 2-0 and has just done the hardest thing in the draw's bottom half — beaten the 12th seed, from a set down, by giving her nothing to hit. Her method travels: junk, height, drop shots, and a willingness to stay out there for two hours and fifty-one minutes. Against a power player finding her way back through qualifying, that is a genuinely awkward assignment, and Putintseva has made the quarter-finals here herself.
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: Qinwen Zheng to advance ✓ RIGHT
“The hard-court record and the 2024 quarter-final against a head-to-head built entirely on clay — narrow, and Putintseva's junkball method is exactly the wrong problem for Zheng.”
Locked 2026-09-01 23:05 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Qinwen ZhengYulia PutintsevaPlayer 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
- Putintseva leads the head-to-head 2-0, both meetings on clay: Roland Garros 2023, and a Madrid match in 2024 that Zheng retired from at 5-7 0-2.
- Putintseva beat the 12th seed Belinda Bencic 4-6 7-5 6-3, with a fastest serve of 100 mph and no ace conceded to her opponent.
- Zheng is in the draw as a qualifier at No. 121, having reached the quarter-finals of this tournament in 2024.
- Zheng came from a set down to beat the 16-year-old Kristina Liutova 4-6 6-3 6-1 in the first round.
- Both women have a US Open quarter-final as their best result here — Zheng in 2024, Putintseva in 2020.
Head to head
Two meetings, both on clay: Putintseva won 6-3 4-6 6-2 in the Roland Garros second round in 2023, and led 7-5 2-0 in Madrid in 2024 when Zheng retired. They have never met on a hard court.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-01.
Court & schedule: Court 12, 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.