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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 32
Elina Svitolina vs Anna Kalinskaya — 6-3 2-6 6-3
| Anna Kalinskaya✓ | 6 | 2 | 6 |
 Elina Svitolina | 3 | 6 | 3 |
Final · Friday, September 4, 2026 · Round of 32
Result
Thirteen of the twenty-six games went against serve, and the first five all did: neither woman held until Kalinskaya consolidated for 4-2 and closed the opening set on Svitolina's serve. Svitolina answered by taking four in a row from 2-2 for the second, and broke first in the decider to lead 3-2 — and that was the last game she won. Kalinskaya broke straight back and took the last four, the final two without losing a point. It was a strange way to win: no aces at all against Svitolina's four, fourteen double faults, forty unforced errors to twenty-one, and a loser who converted six of her eight break points. "I'm shocked," Kalinskaya said. "The match was very close. I feel until the last point it was very up and down." It carries her into a first US Open fourth round and completes the set — she has now reached the second week at all four majors. Svitolina has not gone past the third round in New York since her 2021 quarter-final, and her best here remains the 2019 semi-final. There was no handshake at the net; she said in May that she is still declining them against Russian and Belarusian opponents.
Elina SvitolinaRows 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: 1:52
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.
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.
My locked pick: Elina Svitolina to advance ✗ WRONG
“4-1 up in the series with three routs in it, and 130 points clear on hard-court Elo.”
Locked 2026-09-03 02:50 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Elina SvitolinaAnna KalinskayaPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-04.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-02.
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.
Court & schedule: Louis Armstrong Stadium, Friday 4 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 2026-09-03)
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.