Day 6 of the 2026 US Open, Friday 4 September, first half of the third round in both singles draws.
Paul needed two sets to fix his serve. Then he broke Bublik five times.
Down two sets to one, Tommy Paul said afterwards that he went back out intending to raise his first-serve percentage and put more returns in the court. Nothing more exotic than that. He broke Alexander Bublik five times over the next two sets and took them 6-1, 6-3.
Tommy Paul [20] def. Alexander Bublik [15] 6-4, 3-6, 6-7(4), 6-1, 6-3 Third round, US Open, Louis Armstrong Stadium, Friday 4 September 2026. Three hours 13 minutes.
How it started
Paul got the only break of the first set at 4-4 and served it out. Bublik did not reach a break point until the sixth game of the second set, and did not convert it. Two games later he did: he won a triple-deuce game for 4-3, broke for 5-3, and closed the set 6-3 with a 131 mph ace, according to the tournament's own match report. The serve was carrying him — he finished with 16 aces to Paul's 10.
The turn
Paul had to survive the third set and didn't. He held a four-deuce service game for 2-1, both players struggled on return, and the set went to a tiebreak Bublik led 3-0. Paul got back to 3-3 and then lost it 7-4, ending it with a forehand long.
What changed in the fourth set was the return game, immediately. Paul broke in the first game, broke again for 4-1, and broke a third time to level the match at two sets each. Across the full match he won 6 of his 8 break points; Bublik won 2 of 7. That is the gap.
The serve numbers point the same way. Paul landed 93 of 141 first serves (66 per cent) to Bublik's 85 of 143 (59 per cent), and Bublik hit six double faults to Paul's one, per the official match statistics.
How it finished
Paul led the fifth set 5-0. Bublik held for 5-1 with his 15th ace of the match, then broke Paul from 0-30 down for 5-2 and held again for 5-3. Paul then won four straight points for the match. He finished with 44 winners to 35 unforced errors; Bublik had 41 winners and 49 errors.
"With Bublik, you always got to be ready for him to turn it on," Paul said afterwards.
What a club player can steal from it
When someone is serving through you, the instinct is to swing harder on return. Paul went the other way: he tidied up his own service games first, because a player who holds comfortably gets to return without pressure. Try that order next time you're being out-served — first-serve percentage before return aggression, and one extra return in the court per game rather than one extra winner.
Pegula won two more points than Fernandez. That was the whole match.
Jessica Pegula won 86 points on Friday. Leylah Fernandez won 84. Pegula won the match in three sets after losing the first 6-1, and the two-point margin is the point: she converted all three break points she earned, and Fernandez converted three of eleven.
Jessica Pegula [3] def. Leylah Fernandez [31] 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 Third round, US Open, Arthur Ashe Stadium, Friday 4 September 2026. Two hours 11 minutes.
How it started
Fernandez took the first set in roughly half an hour and never faced a break point in it, breaking early and again for 5-1. The WTA's match report put Pegula at 31 per cent first serves in for that set, with 11 unforced errors and three winners. Fernandez, by the same report, made four unforced errors in the set. Across the match Fernandez won 71 per cent of her second-serve points, to Pegula's 47.
The turn
It turned on a game Fernandez didn't win. At 2-2 in the second set she reached break point and put a forehand into the net, per the WTA report; Pegula broke in the very next game. Pegula then survived a seven-deuce hold, per the tournament's shot-by-shot log, and saved four more break points on the way to 5-2.
Fernandez broke back to 5-4. Pegula broke again in the final game to take the set 6-4.
The third set repeated the shape exactly. Fernandez had break-point chances at 1-1 and did not take them. Pegula broke in the next game, and that was the decisive break of the match. Behind it was the fix Pegula had been hunting since the first set: the WTA reported her first-serve percentage up to 58 for the third, with 10 winners against five unforced errors and only nine points conceded on her own serve.
How it finished
Pegula served it out for 6-3, closing on a run to triple match point. She ended with 26 winners to Fernandez's 13 and five aces to one, but 29 unforced errors to Fernandez's 25 — the totals stayed close all the way through, which is exactly why the break-point column decided it.
"I was just a little lazy to start off," Pegula said in her on-court interview.
What a club player can steal from it
Three of three. Break points are a small fraction of the points in a match and they decide most of them, so the worst time to invent a plan is when you finally get one. Pick the pattern before the game starts — return cross-court deep, make her hit a backhand, one ball more than she wants to hit — and run it at 0-40 or at deuce. And when a set gets away from you, the first dial to turn is first-serve percentage, not shot selection.
Around the grounds
Carlos Alcaraz [2] def. Yibing Wu 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 — the No. 2 seed through in 2 hours 20 minutes on Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Ben Shelton [8] def. Denis Shapovalov 7-6(3), 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-4 — the longest men's match of the day at 3 hours 22 minutes, with the two tiebreaks split.
Stefanos Tsitsipas def. Jiri Lehecka [18] 2-6, 6-1, 7-6(3), 6-1 — unseeded Tsitsipas lost the opening set and won the next three, taking the third in a tiebreak.
Daniil Medvedev [7] def. Arthur Rinderknech [26] 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 — three identical sets in 1 hour 59 minutes.
Frances Tiafoe [11] def. Valentin Vacherot [22] 6-4, 6-2, 6-4 — a seed-on-seed straight-sets win, also in 1 hour 59 minutes.
Emma Navarro [26] def. Karolina Muchova [7] 6-3, 7-5 — the highest seed to fall on Day 6, in straight sets on the Grandstand.
Anna Kalinskaya [21] def. Elina Svitolina [9] 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 — the day's other top-ten casualty, this one in a decider.
Taylor Townsend def. Diana Shnaider [15] 6-2, 6-7(3), 6-3 — Townsend lost a second-set tiebreak and took the decider 6-3.
Linda Noskova [6] def. Ann Li [29] 6-2, 6-7(6), 6-2 — same shape: a tiebreak dropped in the middle, comfortable either side of it.
Aryna Sabalenka [1] def. Kamilla Rakhimova 6-3, 6-4 — the top seed through in straight sets in 1 hour 29 minutes.
What's next
Saturday 5 September is Day 7 and completes the third round in both singles draws, per the tournament's schedule of play.
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