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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Elina Svitolina vs Anna Kalinskaya
Round of 32
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My pick: Elina Svitolina to advance · locked 2026-09-03 02:50 UTCPrediction
Svitolina is 43-15 for the season, ninth in the world, and 314-161 on hard courts for a career that includes a US Open semi-final in 2019. Kalinskaya is the 21st seed, 23rd in the world, 25-18 this year, and has never gone past the third round here. The head-to-head is 4-1 to Svitolina and the margins in it are brutal — 6-1 6-2 in Dubai, 6-1 6-1 in Montreal, 6-3 6-3 in Rome, and a retirement at 6-1 4-1 in Berlin in June. Kalinskaya's one win is the most recent completed meeting on a hard court, 6-4 6-3 in the Doha round of 16 in February, and it is the reason this is not a formality. The other reason is Wednesday: Svitolina beat Maya Joint 6-2 6-7(6) 6-4 having held five match points and taken none of them, dropping a tiebreak she led 4-1 and then four more chances on Joint's serve at 5-3. She has looked like the better player in both her matches and has not closed either cleanly. Kalinskaya has come through Anna Blinkova and, in three sets, Xinyu Wang, and does not have the ranking gap in her head that a 4-1 record suggests. Svitolina by a distance the Elo tables put at about 130 points, but not comfortably.
The case for Elina Svitolina
68% to winSvitolina has won four of five, three of them for the loss of five games a match, and she has the deepest hard-court record in this half of the draw. At 31 she is having the best season of her second act — 43-15, ninth in the world, and the only woman left in this quarter who has been to a US Open semi-final. Kalinskaya has never beaten her on a big stage and has never been past the third round in New York.
The case for Anna Kalinskaya
32% to winKalinskaya won the last completed meeting, 6-4 6-3 in Doha in February, which is the only data point from this season and the only one on a hard court in the last year that went her way. Svitolina squandered five match points on Wednesday against a 20-year-old ranked 70th; anyone watching that third set saw a player who could not finish. If Kalinskaya's return is on, the 21st seed does not need to play above herself to make this long.
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
Elina SvitolinaAnna KalinskayaPlayer 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
- Svitolina held five match points against Maya Joint on Wednesday and needed a sixth.
- Kalinskaya has never gone beyond the third round at the US Open.
- Svitolina leads the series 4-1, three of those wins for the loss of five games or fewer.
- Kalinskaya's one win came in Doha in February, the most recent completed meeting.
- Svitolina is 43-15 for the season and reached the US Open semi-finals in 2019.
Head to head
Svitolina leads 4-1: 6-1 6-2 in Dubai in February 2025, 6-1 6-1 in the Montreal round of 32 in July 2025, 6-3 6-3 in the Rome round of 32 in May 2024, and 6-1 4-1 in Berlin in June 2026 when Kalinskaya retired. Kalinskaya's win is 6-4 6-3 in the Doha round of 16 in February 2026.
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.
