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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Naomi Osaka vs Elise Mertens — 6-3 3-6 7-5
 Naomi Osaka✓ | 6 | 3 | 7 |
 Elise Mertens | 3 | 6 | 5 |
Final · Saturday, September 5, 2026 · Round of 32
Result
Osaka converted four of sixteen break points, made 41 unforced errors, cried into a towel at a changeover and won anyway — and never once served for the match. The first set turned on a single break in the fourth game, handed over by two Mertens double faults, and she held it out at 5-3 on a fourth set point having saved two break points. Mertens took the second by breaking twice. In the third Osaka was broken at 2-2 with a netted backhand, sat through the changeover with the towel over her head, took a medical timeout after holding for 3-4 to have her left leg treated, and immediately broke back to love. Mertens saved a match point at 4-5, held for 5-5, and was broken in the twelfth game on Osaka's fourth. It was their tenth meeting, more than Osaka has played anyone else. "I'm literally shocked that I won this match. I'm not gonna lie to you," she said on court, and then apologised for how she had behaved during it: "I was very negative on myself. For the little kids watching, I'm really sorry." The leg, she said, is "this ongoing problem that I've had since grass season."
Naomi OsakaRows 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: Louis Armstrong Stadium
Match length: 2:38
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.
Osaka is a two-time champion here and a semi-finalist last year, and she has needed two hours and change in each of her matches to reach this point: 7-6(6) 7-6(3) over Anastasia Zakharova on Ashe on Monday night, then 6-2 5-7 6-1 against Katerina Siniakova on Thursday, a match she led 5-3 in the second set before losing her serve in three consecutive games. Mertens has been the tidier of the two — 6-4 6-4 past Kaitlin Quevedo and 6-2 7-6(5) past Maria Timofeeva, 22 unforced errors in the second of those against Osaka's 29 in hers — and she got to New York four days after losing the Monterrey final, which is either form or mileage depending on how the first set goes. The head-to-head is Osaka's at 6-4, and she has won both meetings this season for the loss of nine games. Mertens' route is the one she has always taken against big hitters: absorb, extend, make an eleven-ace server play a fourth shot. The Elo tables have Osaka about a hundred points clear, which on a hard court is roughly two-thirds to one-third.
The case for Naomi Osaka
68% to winTwo US Open titles, a semi-final here last year, and eleven aces on Thursday against one of the better returners in the draw. She has won their last two meetings this season for nine games in total and leads 6-4 lifetime. 2026 has already brought her first quarter-finals at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, and when her first serve lands there is no shot in Mertens' game that changes the direction of a rally.
The case for Elise Mertens
32% to winMertens has spent less time on court and made fewer errors getting here, and the one thing Osaka has repeatedly handed back this fortnight is a lead — two tiebreaks on Monday, 5-3 in the second set on Thursday. Mertens beat her at Indian Wells in 2024 and at Wuhan in 2017, both times by extending rallies rather than out-hitting her. A 30-year-old ranked 20 in the world, in a third round at an eleventh consecutive US Open, is not the draw a two-time champion wants this early.
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: Naomi Osaka to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Two wins over Mertens this season for nine games, a 6-4 head-to-head, and a hundred-point Elo edge on a hard court.”
Locked 2026-09-03 18:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Naomi OsakaElise MertensPlayer 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 2026-09-03.
Storylines
- Osaka is a two-time US Open champion, in 2018 and 2020, and reached the semi-finals here last year.
- Thursday was her eleventh Grand Slam match win of 2026 — double figures at the majors for the first time since 2019.
- She led Siniakova 5-3 in the second set on Thursday and then lost her serve three games running.
- Mertens is into the third round at an eleventh consecutive US Open; her best run here is a quarter-final.
- All six of Mertens' major titles are in doubles, and she was the world No. 1 in doubles in 2021.
Head to head
Osaka leads 6-4 and has won both meetings this season — 6-3 6-3 in the Bad Homburg round of 16 in June and 6-1 6-2 in the Toronto second round in August. Mertens' most recent win was 7-5 6-4 at Indian Wells in 2024; their first meeting, at Wuhan in 2017, also went to her in three sets, and one of her four is a walkover at the Gippsland Trophy in 2021.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-03.
Court & schedule: Louis Armstrong Stadium, Saturday 5 September in the night session. 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 2026-09-04)
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.