US Open 2026's Grand Slam debuts: Liutova, Lee, Havlickova, Frodin and more

15m read 29 Aug 2026 5h ago

Garrett Ellwood/USTA via Getty Images

Ten players will make their Grand Slam main-draw debuts at the 2026 US Open -- seven qualifiers and three wild cards, hailing from locations from the Arctic Circle to the Pacific Ocean. They include the first player born in the 2010s to compete in a major main draw, a holder of two Masters degrees who turned down a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a pro tennis career and a top junior who's already played Serena Williams on the big screen. Get to know them here:

Reese Brantmeier (USA)

Reese Brantmeier has only played one tour-level match so far in her career, but the 21-year-old's place in tennis history is assured. She was the lead plaintiff in the Brantmeier v. NCAA class action lawsuit, brought in 2024 and settled this year. Part of that settlement has been the elimination of pre-enrollment prize money restrictions across all college sports -- a game-changer in terms of eligibility and recruitment.

In light of that, it's ironic that college tennis has also provided University of North Carolina graduate Brantmeier's route to the US Open. The reigning NCAA singles champion, she defeated Katrina Scott 6-4, 7-6(7) in the final of the American Collegiate Player Wild Card Playoffs in June to earn her main-draw wild card.

A former Top 30 junior who made the 2021 US Open girls' doubles final alongside Elvina Kalieva, Brantmeier previously made the final round of 2021 US Open qualifying as a wild card, defeating Rebecca Sramkova along the way. On graduating this spring, she immediately compiled a nine-match winning streak, collecting the Wichita W35 title and making the Sumter W100 final. Brantmeier made her WTA main-draw debut in Memphis as a wild card, falling to Iryna Shymanovich in the first round. Now ranked No. 425, she'll get a second shot at a maiden tour-level win against Oleksandra Oliynykova next week.

Thea Frodin (USA)

Californian teenager Thea Frodin has already had a taste of greatness. In 2021, she played a young Serena Williams in the Oscar-nominated film King Richard, spending six months on set in total.

Fast forward five years, and Frodin -- who has Swedish and Gabonese heritage, and dual citizenship with Sweden -- will be competing alongside Serena in the same tournament. Now 17 years old, she earned her US Open wild card by winning the USTA Girls' 18s National Championships two weeks ago, defeating Julieta Pareja 7-6(2), 7-6(4) in the semifinals and Janae Preston 6-1, 6-0 in the final. A former junior No. 11, she was the 2025 Wimbledon girls' doubles runner-up alongside Pareja, and a girls' singles semifinalist at the Australian Open this year.

Frodin, ranked No. 580 this week, has also begun making an impact at pro level. She defeated Kristina Liutova to reach her first W35 final in Arcadia this February, and made her WTA qualifying debut as a wild card in Miami -- stretching Viktorija Golubic to a 2-6, 6-3, 6-2 loss in her first meeting with a Top 100 player. An even higher new level awaits Frodin in her tour-level debut next week -- she'll take on No. 2 seed Elena Rybakina in the first round.

Lucie Havlickova (CZE)

Four years ago, Lucie Havlickova was a dominant, big-hitting junior No. 1 who could boast one major crown in girls' singles, two in girls' doubles and a runner-up showing at the 2022 US Open. Two years ago, she was working in a Prague café to pay her rent, waking up at 3.30 a.m. every day to make her shifts and only occasionally even checking tennis results. This week, she's fought her way through US Open qualifying to reach her first Grand Slam main draw, saving one match point in her second-round 6-2, 2-6, 7-6[6] defeat of No. 2 seed Moyuka Uchijima.

Back in 2022, Havlickova claimed the Roland Garros junior title with wins over Sara Bejlek and Solana Sierra, and defeated Diana Shnaider to make the US Open final (where she fell to Alexandra Eala). She joined forces with two of her beaten opponents -- Bejlek in Paris and Shnaider in New York -- to sweep those two doubles events. That year, she also notched her first WTA main-draw win, reaching the second round of Prague as a 17-year-old wild card on home soil. By May 2023, she had cracked the WTA Top 200, peaking at No. 196 in July.

But 12 months later, Havlickova was injured physically and exhausted mentally.

"Tennis stopped being fun and something that brought me joy," she told Tenis Portal in 2025. "It became more of a struggle -- something I didn't look forward to. I was even scared to step on to the court. In the end, it became completely unacceptable for me to be on court. So I decided it would be better to take a break -- from both a health and mental standpoint."

Havlickova did not play between May 2024 and June 2025, and when she returned she was unranked. Fourteen months later, she's worked her way back up to No. 225. In July, she scored her first Top 75 win over Alycia Parks to reach the Prague second round for the third time; she'll bid to win her first tour-level match outside her home tournament against Anna Bondar next week.

Polina Iatcenko

Born in icy Murmansk, the largest city north of the Arctic Circle, Polina Iatcenko was in hot form this week in her US Open qualifying debut. The 23-year-old defeated both seeds in her bracket -- No. 7 Lucia Bronzetti, a former Top 50 player, and No. 31 Andrea Lazaro Garcia -- to book her spot in her first Grand Slam main draw.

Iatcenko was a former Top 30 junior who played her first pro tournaments in 2020 and enjoyed steady progress over the subsequent five years. Last year, she began to deliver a series of breakthrough results that lifted her ranking from No. 301 this time last year to a career high of No. 146 in July (she is currently No. 160).

The Ourense W50 title last August was followed by her first WTA 125 trophy in Caldas da Rainha on hard courts -- a title run that included a 5-7, 6-4, 6-4 second-round defeat of former World No. 1 Karolina Pliskova. The ranking boost enabled Iatcenko to make her WTA debut in Chennai at the end of 2025, where she made the quarterfinals.

In 2026, Iatcenko has played each Grand Slam qualifying draw for the first time. After winning the Hurghada W50 grass-court tournament in June, she came within a match of her main-draw debut at Wimbledon, but was stopped in the final round of qualifying by Ashlyn Krueger. In New York, Iatcenko dispatched Lazaro Garcia 7-5, 6-1 at the same stage, and will face Renata Zarazua in the first round. A possible second-round meeting with World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka awaits the winner.

Elvina Kalieva (USA)

Five years after Elvina Kalieva and Reese Brantmeier were the US Open girls' doubles runners-up, both Americans will make their main-draw debuts next week. Their paths were very different, though: whereas wild card Brantmeier took the college route, Kalieva has spent the past half-decade grinding on the World Tennis circuit, and this week came through Grand Slam qualifying for the first time at her 11th attempt.

A Brooklyn native of Uzbek descent, Kalieva -- whose older brother Arthur is a professional ice hockey player -- made her WTA main-draw debut as a wild card at Indian Wells 2022, where she stretched Ekaterina Alexandrova all the way in the first round before falling 4-6, 6-2, 7-6(7). She had to wait four years to score her first tour-level win, which she claimed over Dalma Galfi in Miami this year.

In between, Kalieva cracked the Top 200 in October 2022 as a 19-year-old, but slumped out of the Top 300 in 2024. She's put together her most sustained run of form in the past year, including her biggest World Tennis title to date at January's San Diego W100 and five Top 100 wins in 2026 so far (compared to just two before this season). Two of those came at another tour-level breakthrough in Memphis last month, where Kalieva upset Zeynep Sonmez and Peyton Stearns to reach her first WTA semifinal; she's risen to a career high of No. 115 this week.

Staying tough 💪

Elvina Kalieva is in her first main draw at the US Open. pic.twitter.com/aCKSEwu7ZB
— USTA (@usta) August 28, 2026

This week, she battled through a trio of three-setters against Kristina Mladenovic, Sofia Costoulas and Vendula Valdmannova -- the latter a 2-hour, 53-minute marathon that was the last qualifying match to finish, Kalieva converting her third match point with some phenomenal defense to win a riveting six-deuce final game. She'll face Lanlana Tararudee in the first round.

Anouk Koevermans (NED)

Before this week, Anouk Koevermans had not made it past the second round of Grand Slam qualifying in seven previous attempts. At Flushing Meadows, the 22-year-old broke through in style, defeating Carole Monnet, Linda Klimovicova and Mariam Bolkvadze without dropping a set to make the main draw.

The daughter of former ATP No. 37 Mark Koevermans, who reached the fourth round of Wimbledon 1990, the Dutchwoman compiled a 55-28 record in 2024 to cut her year-end ranking from No. 457 to No. 191. Last year, she consolidated her Top 200 position by reaching her first two WTA 125 finals, in Palermo and San Sebastian, and also made her WTA main-draw debut as a home-soil wild card in 's-Hertogenbosch (falling to Maria Sakkari in the first round).

This year, the big-serving Koevermans -- who tallied 20 aces in three qualifying matches this week -- captured her second W75 title in Porto in February, and has compiled a 26-14 record so far. She'll take on Caty McNally in the first round.

Gabriela Knutson (CZE)

Over the past few years, Gabriela Knutson's mother Ilona has often reminded her daughter that she was never supposed to be a tennis pro. Instead, as the Czech put it in a blog post last year: "I am here because I turned down a Fulbright application and halfheartedly chose to pursue a tennis career, not knowing how it would go in any way."

After playing college tennis for Syracuse University, where she gained a journalism degree, Knutson went on to study for not one but two Masters degrees (renewable energy and marketing) at Durham University in England. On graduating in 2022, she was offered a coveted Fulbright research scholarship to study wind turbines in Germany. One career path was opening up nicely.

Instead, at the age of 26, Knutson turned down the scholarship and embarked on the rather more precarious route of a professional tennis career. Unranked at the start of 2022, she qualified for her first WTA main draw the following year, on home soil in Prague, and reached a career high of No. 155 in November 2023. She's now a two-time WTA 125 runner-up (Caldas da Rainha last September and Warsaw three weeks ago), and scored her first Top 100 win over Zhang Shuai in Washington qualifying last month.

Knutson already came within two points of her first Grand Slam main draw the first time she played a major qualifying event, at the 2024 Australian Open, where she was edged 6-4, 1-6, 7-6[4] in the final round by another college standout, Yuliia Starodubtseva. It's taken her another 10 attempts to get over the line -- and she did it without dropping a set against Varvara Lepchenko, Dominika Salkova and Ekaterine Gorgodze this week in New York.

It's an appropriate venue for it: in her college days, Knutson was offered a US Open wild card on condition that she switched nationality to the United States (she is a Czech-American dual citizen). Like the Fulbright scholarship, she turned down what might have seemed like a significant career opportunity in order to follow the path she wanted.

At the age of 29, it's led her to her dream destination: the main draw of a Grand Slam, and a first-round date with Eva Lys in which she will bid for her first tour-level win at the fourth attempt.

Carol Young Suh Lee (USA)

Carol Young Suh Lee's journey has taken the 24-year-old all the way from a tiny Pacific island to Flushing Meadows.

In 2019, the Saipan native became the first player representing the Northern Mariana Islands -- an unincorporated territory of the United States comprising 14 islands with a population of under 50,000 -- to compete in a junior Grand Slam at the Australian Open. Following her junior career, Lee headed to Pepperdine University to gain a degree in sports medicine.

On graduating in 2024, now playing under the United States flag, Lee turned pro and hit the ground running. Unranked at the start of 2025, she compiled a 77-20 record that year -- including five World Tennis titles in locations from Georgia to Japan to Spain -- and ended the season at No. 213. In 2026, she's played the qualifying events of the first three majors of the year for the first time, coming within a match of the main draw at the Australian Open (she was edged 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 by Linda Fruhvirtova in the final round).

At the US Open, Lee's been able to bypass qualifying as the winner of the USTA's Wild Card Challenge, which awarded a wild card to the American player who'd earned the most hard-court points between Wimbledon and August 9. Lee compiled a 16-3 record in that timeframe, including qualifying for her first WTA main draw in Prague and reaching the second round, then capturing her first career WTA 125 title in Warsaw.

Now ranked No. 143, Lee will bid to continue that form in Flushing Meadows, where she takes on Katie Boulter in the first round.

Kristina Liutova

Last month in Memphis, 16-year-old qualifier Kristina Liutova delivered arguably the most stunning title run of the year on the WTA Tour Driven by Mercedes-Benz. The teenager had neither played a WTA qualifying draw nor faced a Top 100 opponent before, but on her tour-level debut upset Ekaterina Alexandrova in the first round when the No. 1 seed was forced to retire due to heat illness two points from defeat.

Despite the unusual nature of that match, Liutova was able to ride her momentum all the way to the trophy, collecting another pair of Top 100 wins over Maya Joint and Caty McNally en route. She became the first player born in the 2010s to capture a WTA title and the 10th player in WTA history to win a tournament on her tour-level debut (and the first since Maria Timofeeva at Budapest 2023). Ranked No. 229 going into Memphis, Liutova now sits at a career high of No. 125. She was unranked as recently as last April.

There's been no sign of a letdown this week in US Open qualifying, Liutova's first event since Memphis and her Grand Slam qualifying debut. Seeded No. 16, she came through two tough three-setters over Tatiana Prozorova and Lola Radivojevic before routing Martyna Kubka 6-4, 6-0 in the final round. With a game based around relentless consistency and disciplined depth, Liutova averaged just five unforced errors per set across her three matches.

Based near Seattle, Liutova has competed on the USTA World Tennis circuit rather than international junior tournaments this year, and her strong performances have presaged her surge in Memphis and New York. She won her first W35 title in Las Vegas in February, then collected consecutive W100 trophies in Indian Harbour Beach and Sumter across May and June. Her overall 2026 record is a remarkable 36-4.

Liutova will bid to extend her nine-match winning streak in one of the most intriguing first-round matchups in the draw. She has been paired with another qualifier, Olympic gold medalist Zheng Qinwen, in the first round.

Mary Stoiana (USA)

Growing up in Connecticut, Mary Stoiana "did not have all the resources in the world," as she told 12th Man Foundation last year. She did not play her first out-of-state tournament until she was 16 years old, and had little experience of high-level junior tournaments before she was offered a place on the Texas A&M college tennis team. While at university, Stoiana thrived: she was ranked No. 1 in the country by the NCAA, and even did well enough in her intermittent professional appearances to gain a Top 300 ranking while still a student.

It's little surprise, then, that the 23-year-old has made it to a Grand Slam main draw just over a year after her 2025 graduation. Ranked No. 378 last October, Stoiana finished the season by winning 16 of her last 18 matches -- making the Tyler W100 final, the Austin WTA 125 quarterfinals and winning back-to-back W50 titles in Austin and Chihuahua -- to gain direct entry to Australian Open qualifying this year.

In 2026, Stoiana has pushed on, compiling a 39-22 record so far. Her year has been highlighted by two WTA 125 semifinals (Midland and Ilkley), her WTA main-draw debut in Austin (falling to Anastasia Zakharova in three sets), making the final qualifying round at Roland Garros and coming through qualifying in Charleston and Cincinnati (where she notched her third career Top 100 win over Oksana Selekhmeteva). This week, she added the US Open to the latter list, defeating Harmony Tan, Katie Swan and Yuan Yue to navigate her first Grand Slam qualifying draw at the seventh attempt.

Stoiana, who is now at a career high of No. 122, will face No. 17 seed Alexandra Eala in the first round of the main draw, and will bid for her first tour-level win at the fifth attempt.