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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Marta Kostyuk vs Ekaterina Alexandrova
Round of 32
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My pick: Marta Kostyuk to advance · locked 2026-09-03 00:34 UTCPrediction
Both women reached the fourth round here last year and both have won two matches this week, but their seasons could hardly be further apart. Kostyuk is 34-9, ranked 11th, reached her first two major semi-finals this year at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and has beaten Storm Hunter and then the 2017 champion Sloane Stephens 6-1 7-5 for a tenth US Open main-draw win — a mark only Elina Svitolina and Kateryna Bondarenko have reached for Ukraine. Alexandrova is 16-22 for the season and ranked 19th on the strength of last year rather than this one, but she is a fourth-year third-rounder here and has just come through the only genuinely awkward match of the pair, 6-1 2-6 6-3 against Kimberly Birrell, on five aces and 77% of her first-serve points. The complication is the head-to-head: Alexandrova has won both meetings, including a 7-6(5) 5-7 7-5 at Portoroz in 2022 that is the only hard-court evidence either way. It is four years old, and Kostyuk was 20.
The case for Marta Kostyuk
72% to winKostyuk is 34-9 in the best season of her career, with two major semi-finals in it, and she has been the more convincing of the two here — eight aces past Stephens, three times as many winners, and a straight-sets win over a former champion. She is seven years younger, 131-83 on hard courts and rising; Alexandrova is 16-22 for the year and has won consecutive matches only twice since March.
The case for Ekaterina Alexandrova
28% to winAlexandrova has beaten Kostyuk both times they have played, including on a hard court, and she is 187-137 on the surface for her career against an opponent who has never beaten her. She has reached the third round here four years running and the fourth round last year. She also arrives having solved a real problem on Wednesday — a set down against an in-form Australian — while Kostyuk has not been behind in a match all week.
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
Marta KostyukEkaterina AlexandrovaPlayer 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 2026-09-02.
The briefing
Storylines
- Both women reached the US Open fourth round last year; neither has gone further here.
- Alexandrova leads the head-to-head 2-0, including 7-6(5) 5-7 7-5 at Portoroz in 2022.
- Kostyuk is 34-9 for the season with two major semi-finals; Alexandrova is 16-22.
- Kostyuk's win over Sloane Stephens was her tenth in a US Open main draw.
- Alexandrova has reached the third round here in each of the last four years.
Head to head
Alexandrova leads 2-0: 6-3 6-1 in the Rome second round on clay in 2021, and 7-6(5) 5-7 7-5 at Portoroz on a hard court in September 2022 — their only hard-court meeting, and their most recent.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-02.
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 2026-09-02)
Weather: Wednesday night is wet: showers and thunderstorms likely at 64% on a low near 72°F, which is the night session's problem and the roofs' answer. Thursday stays unsettled — 83°F, showers and thunderstorms likely, again at 64% — and eases to 33% overnight. Friday improves without quite clearing: mostly sunny and 82°F, with a slight shower chance at 23%. Saturday is the clean day, sunny and 78°F on 2%, and Sunday is sunny at 74°F. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-02)
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.
