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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 16
Jessica Pegula vs 
Sorana Cirstea
Round of 16
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My pick: Jessica Pegula to advance · locked 2026-09-04 19:10 UTCPrediction
They played this match three weeks ago. Pegula won it 6-2 4-6 7-5 in the Cincinnati round of 16, which is both the reason to pick her and the reason not to be comfortable about it: two of the three sets were close, and it is the only one of their two tour-level meetings that went the distance. On the raw numbers this is a mismatch — Pegula is ranked third to Cîrstea's seventeenth, is 47-13 for the season, and holds a career hard-court record of 257-118 against a 262-232 built over nearly a hundred more matches. Her hard-court Elo is 155 points clear, which is a shade over seventy per cent before anything else is considered. What complicates it is the shape of the week. Cîrstea has not dropped a set — 6-3 6-0, 6-2 7-5, and then 6-3 6-3 against the 19th seed Jasmine Paolini in seventy-five minutes — and she is playing at a career-high level at 36, rising to No. 15 next week in the season she had announced as her last. Pegula, who had conceded no more than three games in any of her first four sets, lost the opener 6-1 to Leylah Fernandez on Friday and needed two hours eleven minutes to get out of it, taking all three of the break points she saw. That is a top-three player finding a way rather than a top-three player in control, and Cîrstea returns better than Fernandez does. But Pegula has been the steadier hard-court player for four years, she was runner-up on this court in 2024, and she has now beaten Cîrstea on clay and on hard without ever losing to her. Pegula, in three.
The case for Jessica Pegula
70% to winPegula is 2-0 against Cîrstea and beat her on a hard court three weeks ago in Cincinnati. She is ranked third in the world to Cîrstea's seventeenth, is 47-13 this season, and her career hard-court record of 257-118 is a winning percentage the Romanian's 262-232 does not approach. She was the runner-up here in 2024 and knows exactly what this stadium asks of her. Friday was her worst set of the fortnight and she still won, converting every one of the three break points she was given — the mark of a player whose floor is high enough that a bad hour does not cost her the match.
The case for Sorana Cirstea
30% to winCîrstea has not lost a set, and the last of the three was against a two-time Grand Slam finalist she dismissed in seventy-five minutes with seven aces and five breaks of serve. At 36 she is about to reach a career-high No. 15, having climbed from outside the top 70 in a year, and she reached the quarter-finals at Roland-Garros this season as well as the last eight here in 2023. Her 262 career hard-court wins are more than Pegula's. The Cincinnati match three weeks ago was a three-setter decided 7-5 in the third, so the gap between them on this surface is one break of serve wide, not the ranking's width — and Pegula needed three sets on Friday against a returner Cîrstea can out-hit.
Both cases written 2026-09-04, 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
Jessica PegulaSorana CirsteaPlayer 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 met three weeks ago in the Cincinnati round of 16 and Pegula won 6-2 4-6 7-5 — the only one of their two tour-level meetings to go three sets.
- Cîrstea has not dropped a set: 6-3 6-0 over Julia Grabher, 6-2 7-5 over Diane Parry, and 6-3 6-3 over the 19th seed Jasmine Paolini.
- Pegula had conceded no more than three games in any of her first four sets before Leylah Fernandez took Friday's opener 6-1 off her.
- Cîrstea rises to a career-high No. 15 next week, at 36, in a season she had announced as her last.
- Neither has won a Grand Slam: Pegula was runner-up here in 2024, and Cîrstea's best New York run is the 2023 quarter-final.
Head to head
Two meetings, both to Pegula: Madrid in 2021 on clay, 7-6(5) 6-3, and the Cincinnati round of 16 three weeks ago on a hard court, 6-2 4-6 7-5.
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 2026-09-04)
Weather: The rain has gone out of the forecast. Friday afternoon is mostly sunny and 81°F on a 0% chance, and Friday night is partly cloudy at 69°F and 4%. Saturday is the same again — mostly sunny, 81°F, 1% — with a 32% chance of showers arriving after dark, which is the only real risk left in the window. Sunday is mostly sunny at 73°F on 10%, and Labor Day is sunny at 77°F on nothing at all. Ashe and Armstrong close their roofs and play on; everything else waits. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-04)
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.
