US Open Day 5: Two second-round matches decided by whose serve held up
US Open Day 5: Two second-round matches decided by whose serve held up
Covering Thursday, 3 September 2026 — Day 5 at Flushing Meadows, second round, day and night sessions.
Keys 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(5) Bondar — the game she served for it
Anna Bondar served for the match at 5-2 in the third set. She reached match point twice in that game, and put a double fault on each of them. Madison Keys, two games from the end of her tournament, never trailed by that margin again.
Result: Madison Keys [22] def. Anna Bondar 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(5). Second round, US Open, Court 17, Thursday 3 September 2026. Just under three hours.
How it started
Bondar, ranked No. 73, took the first set 7-5 against the No. 22 seed. The reports read did not break the set down beyond the scoreline, so that is all that goes here: she won it, and Keys levelled by taking the second 6-4. What is on the record in detail begins in the third set.
The turn
Bondar broke for 5-2 in the decider and served for a place in the third round. Two of the points in that game were match points. Both ended with a double fault, and Keys broke back.
Keys then served at 3-5, went down 15-40, and faced three more match points in that single game. She held. Five match points saved across two games, and three of them on her own serve, where one loose ball ends the fortnight.
Bondar served again at 5-4. Keys broke a second time to level at 5-5, and the set went to a tiebreak.
How it finished
Bondar led the tiebreak 5-3. Keys won the last four points of it, taking the breaker 7-5 and the set 7-6(5). "No stress, though. We all knew I had it," Keys said in her on-court interview afterwards, as quoted by Field Level Media.
What a club player can steal from it
The second serve is the shot that decided Bondar's game at 5-2, and the fix is not a bigger one. Pick the target before the toss when the score is tight — a kick to the backhand, or straight at the body — and hit that one, rather than choosing halfway through the motion. The other half is the returner's, and it is even simpler: at 2-5 down, Keys did not have to hit winners on the first two match points. She had to still be on the court when they were over. Making the server play one more ball is a strategy, not a fallback.
Van de Zandschulp 6-4, 7-5, 6-2 de Minaur — nine aces against seven double faults
Botic van de Zandschulp hit nine aces and four double faults. Alex de Minaur hit four aces and seven double faults. Over two hours and 43 minutes, that gap in free points is most of the explanation for a straight-sets loss by the No. 6 seed.
Result: Botic van de Zandschulp def. Alex de Minaur [6] 6-4, 7-5, 6-2. Second round, US Open, Thursday 3 September 2026. Two hours 43 minutes.
How it started
De Minaur was seeded sixth and ranked No. 7; van de Zandschulp was ranked No. 70 and had lost every previous meeting between the two. According to the match statistics published by Tennis.com, van de Zandschulp faced five break points in the match and de Minaur faced eleven — an imbalance that was there from the opening set, which van de Zandschulp took 6-4. The accounts read did not report which games the breaks fell in, so they are not given here.
The turn
The second set is where the match stopped being competitive, and it took twelve games to do it. The set reached 5-5 before van de Zandschulp closed it out 7-5; which of the last two games held the break was not reported in the accounts read. What is on the record is the conversion rate around it — van de Zandschulp took five of his eleven break points, de Minaur one of his five.
The error columns point the same direction. ABC News reported 29 unforced errors from de Minaur against 21 from van de Zandschulp. That is a narrow gap on its own. Put the seven double faults alongside it and the picture is of free points changing hands in the games where holding serve mattered most.
How it finished
The third set went 6-2. Van de Zandschulp ended the match having broken serve five times to de Minaur's once. "Today I served very well, I think that was the difference," van de Zandschulp said in his on-court interview, as reported by ABC News. ABC also reported that this is de Minaur's earliest US Open exit in five years; he has reached the quarter-finals here three times.
What a club player can steal from it
Serving well across a whole match is mostly first-serve percentage in the games that carry consequence — 4-4, 5-5, 30-30 — where the pull is to go bigger and the payoff is in going more reliable. The other lesson sits on the return side. De Minaur manufactured five break points in nearly three hours, which leaves a player needing to hold every single time. If two return games in a row produce nothing, change something measurable before the set is gone: step inside the baseline and block the first serve back, or move a metre deeper and make him hit one more ball.
Around the grounds
Karen Khachanov def. Felix Auger-Aliassime [3] 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 — Khachanov broke serve seven times and saved seven of the nine break points he faced, per the Reuters match report; three hours 16 minutes on Louis Armstrong Stadium.
Dane Sweeny def. Lorenzo Musetti [13] 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-2 — the Australian wild card, ranked No. 123, won 18 of the last 23 games; ABC News reported that Musetti took a medical timeout after falling behind 0-3 in the third set.
Alexander Zverev [1] def. Quentin Halys 6-4, 4-6, 7-6(3), 6-7(3), 6-3 — five sets with the two tiebreaks split.
Taylor Fritz [9] def. Mattia Bellucci 6-0, 6-1, 6-1 — 28 winners against 22 unforced errors, and 29 of 34 points won behind the first serve.
Iga Swiatek [8] def. Nadia Podoroska 6-3, 6-2 — 77 per cent of points won on serve with 14 unforced errors.
Coco Gauff [4] def. Paula Badosa 6-4, 7-6(5) — a second-set tiebreak to avoid a decider.
Yuliia Starodubtseva def. Maria Sakkari [32] 1-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 — a set and a tiebreak from going out.
Cristina Bucsa def. Himeno Sakatsume 7-6(6), 6-7(0), 7-6(6) — three tiebreaks, two of them at 8-6.
Francisco Cerundolo [24] def. Jan-Lennard Struff 5-7, 7-5, 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
Naomi Osaka [13] def. Katerina Siniakova 6-2, 5-7, 6-1.
What's next
The third round begins on Friday 4 September, per the CBS Sports order-of-play tracker.
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