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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Marta Kostyuk vs Ekaterina Alexandrova — 6-3 6-2
 Marta Kostyuk✓ | 6 | 6 |
| Ekaterina Alexandrova | 3 | 2 |
Final · Friday, September 4, 2026 · Round of 32
Result
Kostyuk won the first three games and led 5-1 before Alexandrova took two back on the run; the eleventh seed served out the set at 6-3. The second turned exactly once. Alexandrova broke for 2-0 and then lost the last six games in a row, undone by 28 unforced errors against Kostyuk's 23 winners — she won barely a third of the points behind her second serve all afternoon. Seven breaks of serve in seventeen games, an hour and seventeen minutes on the Grandstand. It was Kostyuk's first win over Alexandrova in three meetings — she had lost both previous ones, the last of them four years ago — and it takes her into a US Open fourth round for the second year running, the first Ukrainian into the second week here. "It wasn't easy to go out for this match knowing I was 0-2 down to her in the head-to-head, but I was ready to fight," she said on court afterwards, in Ukrainian, adding that the last time the two played was four years ago and that she felt she had changed a great deal since, as a person and as a player. She plays Ann Li or the sixth seed Linda Nosková next.
Marta KostyukRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
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.
Round of 64
Round of 32
What we know now
Court: Grandstand
Match length: 1:17
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
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.
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.
My locked pick: Marta Kostyuk to advance ✓ RIGHT
“A 34-9 season against a 16-22 one, and 180 Elo points; the 2-0 head-to-head is four years old and is why this is 72 and not 85.”
Locked 2026-09-03 00:34 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Marta KostyukEkaterina AlexandrovaPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-04.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-02.
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.
Court & schedule: Grandstand, Friday 4 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 2026-09-03)
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.