NEW YORK — Kamilla Rakhimova sprang the first big upset of the 2026 US Open, defeating two-time Grand Slam singles champion and No. 27 seed Barbora Krejcikova 7-6 (4), 6-2 in 1 hour and 53 minutes on Sunday to reach the second round. She converted her seventh match point to finally get over the line.<\/p>\n
US Open: Scores<\/a> | Order of play<\/a> | Draws<\/a><\/p>\n “It’s funny. I watched the highlights of her previous match (against Taylor Townsend), and she saved eight match points and won,” Rakhimova said in her on-court interview. “I was trying not to think about it, and I’m glad that I managed my emotions and closed the match in my favor.”<\/p>\n For Rakhimova, it’s her first win over Krejcikova in two WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz meetings. This marks her second appearance in the second round at Flushing Meadows, where she\u00a0awaits the winner of Aoi Ito and Oksana Selekhmeteva.<\/p>\n But first, here are the numbers to know from her upset win over Krejcikova.<\/p>\n 3: Consecutive Grand Slam second-round appearances. After opening wins at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, this marks the first time Rakhimova has reached the Round of 64 at three straight Majors.<\/p>\n “First rounds are always a bit tricky and they’re probably the most nervous (matches) because you’re trying to settle into your game,” Rakhimova said. “But I’m really looking forward to keeping this consistency and form going and for it to keep growing. I don’t want to stop on only first rounds.”<\/p>\n 3: Grand Slam wins over seeded opponents. Rakhimova previously beat No. 32 seed Ekaterina Alexandrova at the 2021 US Open and No. 4 seed Jasmine Paolini at Wimbledon 2025.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n 5: Years since her last US Open main-draw win. After entering the draw as a lucky loser, Rakhimova came from a set down to beat Kristina Mladenovic and upset Alexandrova in straight sets to reach the third round for her best Major result to date. She lost to Krejcikova in her next match.<\/p>\n “I had just started playing on tour and she was already there. She was playing at a high speed, and I just couldn’t catch up to her rhythm,” Rakhimova said. “But time has passed. I grew up as a player and a person, both physically and mentally. So I knew what to expect from her and I’m very glad I found my way today.<\/p>\n 72: Percent of first-serves won. While Krejcikova posted a higher first-serve percentage — 54% to 49% — Rakhimova was better at making hers count. She turned that 5% deficit into an 11% advantage in terms of first-serves won — 72% to 61% — and it paid dividends as she won the final five games of the match.<\/p>\n 92: Ranking coming into the US Open. Entering the week, Rakhimova found herself well off her career-best of No. 60, but a victory over Krejcikova and a winnable second-round match puts her in position to climb back up the PIF WTA Rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK — Kamilla Rakhimova sprang the first big upset of the 2026 US Open, defeating two-time Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,1602,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-755231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-text","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}