US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Amanda Anisimova vs 
Anastasia Potapova
Round of 32
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Amanda Anisimova to advance · locked 2026-09-03 20:05 UTCPrediction
Anisimova was the runner-up here last year — she beat Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals and Naomi Osaka in the semis before losing to Sabalenka — and she is defending every one of those points. What she has shown so far this fortnight is a player winning without control: 6-1 6-3 over Ashlyn Krueger in 72 minutes, then two hours and one minute against the 18-year-old Lilli Tagger, in which she hit thirty winners, made thirty unforced errors and gave away five games in a row in the middle. Her 2026 has been harder than her 2025 — third rounds at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, a wrist injury in Madrid, and a 1-6 record against the top twenty before Cincinnati, where she beat Alexandra Eala and Linda Noskova to reach a quarter-final. Potapova is seeded 24 and ranked 25, and got here by out-lasting the French wild card Leolia Jeanjean 6-4 2-6 6-3 with 54 unforced errors and nine double faults of her own; her season was made on clay, where she is 17-5 with a Madrid semi-final, against 8-10 on hard courts coming into New York. They have met once, in Rome qualifying seven years ago. The Elo tables put Anisimova about 135 points clear.
The case for Amanda Anisimova
68% to winLast year's finalist, ranked tenth, a career high of third in January, and a backhand that is among the hardest-struck shots in the women's game. Potapova has never beaten her, is 130-111 on hard courts for her career against Anisimova's 124-76, and needed nine double faults and 54 unforced errors to get past a wild card ranked 127th. On a quick court this is a mismatch of ball speed, and it has been resolving that way all fortnight.
The case for Anastasia Potapova
32% to winPotapova has just won two matches in a row for the first time since Roland Garros, which is the thing that had been missing from a season that produced a Madrid semi-final and then nothing on hard courts. And Anisimova is leaking: thirty unforced errors against a teenager ranked 49th, a set dropped, five straight games conceded. A player who can absorb that and stay in rallies for two hours has a route, and Potapova spent 2 hours 11 minutes doing exactly that on Thursday.
Both cases written 2026-09-03, 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
Amanda AnisimovaAnastasia PotapovaPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-03.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-03.
The briefing
Storylines
- Anisimova was the runner-up here last year, beating Swiatek and Osaka on the way, and is defending those points.
- She needed two hours and one minute to beat 18-year-old Lilli Tagger, hitting 30 winners and 30 unforced errors.
- Potapova's season was made on clay — a Madrid semi-final, 17-5 on the surface — against 8-10 on hard courts.
- Potapova has represented Austria since her citizenship came through last December and is the country's No. 1.
- They have met once, in Rome qualifying in 2019, which Anisimova won 6-2 7-5.
Head to head
Anisimova leads 1-0, and the meeting is old and small: 6-2 7-5 in the first qualifying round in Rome in May 2019, when both were teenagers. They have never met on a hard court or in a main draw.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-03.
Watch: Third-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 2026-09-03)
Weather: This afternoon and tonight both carry a 33% chance of showers and thunderstorms, 82°F easing to a low near 74°F — the morning's forecast had the day at 58%, so Thursday has improved rather than cleared. Friday is now the unsettled one: partly sunny early, 81°F, showers and storms likely at 46% through the afternoon and 41% after dark, which is the third round's problem and the roofs' answer. Saturday is the clean day — sunny, 78°F, 1% — and Sunday holds, mostly sunny at 73°F on 2%. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-03)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The Round of 32 is the third round, and the last one before a Grand Slam draw becomes a small tournament: sixteen women's matches across Friday and Saturday leave sixteen players standing, every one of them having won twice on these courts. This is the round where the seeding chart stops doing any work — from here on, whoever is left is who you play.
