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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 16
Linda Noskova vs 
Marta Kostyuk
Round of 16
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
My pick: Linda Noskova to advance · locked 2026-09-05 01:40 UTCPrediction
This is the closest of the four fourth-round matchups resolved on Friday, and the two available measures disagree about it. Hard-court Elo has Kostyuk ahead by 53 points — a shade under 58% — and the career hard-court records point the same way, 132-83 against 95-52. The rankings and the year point the other way: Nosková is sixth to Kostyuk's eleventh, is the reigning Wimbledon champion, and has now won ten Grand Slam matches in a row. They have met twice in 2026 and split it, Kostyuk winning a clay quarter-final 7-6(1) 6-0 in April and Nosková winning the Wimbledon semi-final 6-4 6-4 in July — which is the meeting that matters, because it was the bigger occasion and the more recent. Neither arrives clean. Nosková led 3-0 in the second set on Friday, failed to serve the match out at 5-4, held a match point in the tiebreak and lost it, and needed a third set against a player ranked 28th. Kostyuk went through the 20th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova in straight sets and has the tidier week behind her, along with 35 wins to 9 for the season. The tiebreak is Nosková's serve: she has hit more aces in Grand Slam matches this season than anyone, and Kostyuk has to break her twice to win a set. I make it barely a lean, and I am overriding the Elo to take it, which is worth saying out loud rather than hiding in a rounding. Nosková, in three.
The case for Linda Noskova
55% to winNosková won the meeting that counted — the Wimbledon semi-final in July, 6-4 6-4, on the way to the title. She is the reigning Wimbledon champion at 21, is ranked sixth to Kostyuk's eleventh, and is on a ten-match Grand Slam winning streak that is the longest of anyone this season. She has hit more aces in Grand Slam matches in 2026 than any other woman, which is the single most useful thing to own in a match this tight, and this is already the deepest she has been at the US Open. She survived a set she should have won on Friday, which is a different thing from playing badly.
The case for Marta Kostyuk
45% to winKostyuk has the better hard-court Elo by 53 points and the better career record on the surface, 132-83 to 95-52. She is 35-9 for the season, reached this round without the wobble Nosková had on Friday, and beat the 20th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-3 6-2 to get here. She won their most recent completed meeting on a fast day in April, 7-6(1) 6-0, and the second set of that match is the reminder that when this goes wrong for Nosková it goes wrong quickly. Kostyuk also matched this result here last year, so the stage is not new to her.
Both cases written 2026-09-05, 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
Linda NoskovaMarta KostyukPlayer 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 2026-09-04.
The briefing
Storylines
- They split two meetings in 2026: Kostyuk won a clay quarter-final 7-6(1) 6-0 in April, Nosková the Wimbledon semi-final 6-4 6-4 in July.
- Nosková is the reigning Wimbledon champion and has won ten Grand Slam matches in a row.
- Kostyuk's hard-court Elo is 53 points higher, and her career hard-court record is 132-83 to Nosková's 95-52 — the numbers and the rankings disagree about this match.
- Nosková led 3-0 in the second set on Friday, failed to serve it out at 5-4 and lost a tiebreak in which she held a match point.
- This is Nosková's first US Open fourth round; Kostyuk reached the same stage here last year.
Head to head
Two meetings, one each in 2026: Kostyuk won a clay-court quarter-final 7-6(1) 6-0 in April, and Nosková won the Wimbledon semi-final 6-4 6-4 in July on the way to the title.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-04.
Watch: Fourth-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 2026-09-05)
Weather: Today is sunny and 79°F with no rain in it at all, and the only moisture left in the window comes tonight — isolated showers on a 20% chance, 67°F. Sunday is mostly sunny at 74°F on 12% and clear at 63°F after dark, Labor Day is sunny and 77°F on 1%, and Tuesday is mostly sunny at 79°F on nothing. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-05)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.
At this Stage
The Round of 16 is the fourth round, and the point at which a Grand Slam stops being a draw and becomes a tournament you can hold in your head: eight matches, played across Sunday and Monday, and the eight who come through are the quarter-finalists. Everyone still here has won three matches on these courts, so the seedings have stopped being a guide and the form of the fortnight has taken over.
Round of 32
Quarter-finals