A Long Road Back to the Main Draw
Harriet Dart's journey to the US Open second round was anything but straightforward. The 30-year-old British player had not won a Grand Slam singles match since the second round of the 2025 Australian Open, a drought spanning 19 months. During that stretch, she missed qualifying for four of the next six majors and suffered first-round exits at the past two Wimbledon Championships despite receiving wildcards each time. Even her path through qualifying in New York was grueling, as she was pushed to three sets in all three qualifying matches, including defeats of the first set against both Kristina Penickova and Heather Watson before rallying each time.
Stearns Falters as Dart Finds Her Rhythm
Facing American Peyton Stearns in round one, ranked more than 75 places above her, Dart found herself trailing by a set and a break and seemingly heading for another early exit. Stearns applied constant pressure on the Dart serve and dominated the opener, but her game began to unravel as the match wore on. Despite producing 40 winners, Stearns compiled 47 unforced errors, and Dart capitalized with two breaks in the second set to level the match at 3-6 6-3. The decider belonged to Dart almost entirely. She steadied a tense sixth game to stop a sequence of three consecutive breaks and eventually converted her fourth match point to close out a 6-2 third set, completing the comeback in just under two and a half hours.
Dart now joins British compatriots Toby Samuel and Katie Boulter in the second round, where she faces 25th seed Marie Bouzkova. TennisDraw users tracking the British contingent at Flushing Meadows will want to update their bracket picks accordingly.
