US Open 2026 pages
Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Diana Shnaider vs 
Taylor Townsend
Round of 32
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Diana Shnaider to advance · locked 2026-09-02 18:05 UTCPrediction
Shnaider, narrowly, in the one match of this round with no history at all behind it. They are both left-handed, both 5'7", and they have never played each other on tour. The seed is the 22-year-old: No. 16 in the world, 27-19 for the season, a fourth-rounder here in 2024, and through two rounds having dropped a set to nobody — 6-0 6-4 over Daria Snigur, then 6-1 7-6(4) over Karolína Plíšková, a match she led by a set and a break and still had to finish in a tiebreak. Townsend is 30 and ranked 96th in singles, which is the least informative number on this page: she is the world No. 2 in doubles and the top seed in that draw here, she took out the 20th seed Maja Chwalińska in the first round, and she needed 48 minutes to beat Taylah Preston without losing a single point behind her first serve. That is the case for the American — a serve-and-volley game that does not care about ranking, on a court where the crowd will be hers. It is also a game that lives or dies on the return, and Shnaider hits the ball harder from both wings.
The case for Diana Shnaider
58% to winShnaider is 80 places higher, six years fresher and the only seed on court. She has won both her matches in straight sets and beaten a former world No. 1 while doing it; 27-19 for the season against Townsend's 19-13 is a bigger sample at a higher level. The left-handed serve that Townsend's game plan needs to attack is the one Shnaider is most comfortable defending, since she has been hitting into left-handers all her life. And Townsend's singles ranking is 96th for a reason: 114-86 on hard courts for a career is the record of a very good doubles player who wins singles matches in bursts.
The case for Taylor Townsend
42% to winTownsend has not lost a point on her first serve since Monday and came through the 20th seed and a wild card for the loss of twelve games. She is the world No. 2 in doubles, top seed in that draw with Kateřina Siniaková, and the net game that comes with it is the one thing in this match neither player has seen from the other. Shnaider hit no aces against Plíšková and served five double faults; a left-hander who chips and charges the second serve is a different problem from a 34-year-old trading from the baseline. Townsend reached the fourth round here last year, and a New York crowd on an outside show court is worth a break of serve.
Both cases written 2026-09-02, 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
Player 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
- They have never met on tour, in singles or in doubles.
- Both are left-handed and both are listed at 5'7" — the only all-left-handed match in the women's third round.
- Townsend beat the 20th seed Maja Chwalińska 6-2 6-3 and then Taylah Preston 6-1 6-1 in 48 minutes, losing no points behind her first serve.
- Shnaider beat Daria Snigur 6-0 6-4 and Karolína Plíšková 6-1 7-6(4); she reached the fourth round here in 2024, Townsend in 2025.
- Townsend is the world No. 2 in doubles and the top seed in this tournament's doubles draw with Kateřina Siniaková; she is ranked 96th in singles.
Head to head
They have never met on tour.
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 is the break in the weather the schedule has been waiting for: mostly cloudy, near 75°F, and a shower chance of only 19% until the light goes. The night session is where it turns — showers and thunderstorms at 69% on a low near 71°F. Thursday is the unsettled day, warm at 82°F with showers and thunderstorms likely at 60%, easing to 52% overnight. Then Friday breaks clean: near 82°F and mostly sunny on 8%, the first dry day of the fortnight, with Saturday sunny at 78°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.
