Flushing Meadows, Wednesday, 19:00 UTC. Oksana Selekhmeteva and Kamilla Rakhimova walk out for a second-round tie between two players separated by a single ranking place, 93 and 92. Nothing here is unfamiliar: five previous meetings, and the left-hander leads them.
Two very different roads into the second round
Selekhmeteva arrives with the cleanest tennis of her hard-court swing. Consecutive breaks and 4-0 leads in both sets against Aoi Ito, 6-2 6-4, barely a wobble in the whole hour.
Philadelphia built that: a three-hour escape past Capucine Jauffret, then a semifinal against eventual champion Katie Volynets where she led the second-set tiebreak 6-1 and lost seven straight points. The level is there; the closing still flickers.
Rakhimova's week started louder. She beat Barbora Krejcikova 7-6(4) 6-2, taking the last five games and needing seven match points to shut the door on an opponent whose batteries were already flat. Before New York, though, her month was jagged — deciders surrendered to Maria Sakkari and Maria Timofeeva.
The first ball after the serve
That single shot decides it. Rakhimova wants the rally flat, deep and down the middle; Selekhmeteva takes the return early and drags her wide with the cross-court forehand, the exact pattern that worked on the Austin hard courts this season.
The second serve is the honest risk — Selekhmeteva has double-faulted in clusters all summer, and Rakhimova pounces on hesitation. But two players a ranking place apart should not be priced this far apart, and the recent history belongs to the left-hander.
Prediction: Oksana Selekhmeteva to win, odds 2.465
