Emma Navarro Edges Lois Boisson in Rain-Delayed US Open Match
Emma Navarro held her nerve. Lois Boisson lost hers.
On a humid, rain-fractured opening to the 2026 US Open, the 25-year-old American edged past the Frenchwoman 7-6, 6-7, 6-3 in a first-round match that stretched across two days and ended with a jarring image: Navarro celebrating at the net while Boisson, in the background, drove her racket into the hard court in frustration.
A Match Split in Two
They started on Sunday in New York, but the weather had other ideas. Rain sliced through the evening, halting the contest mid-flow and forcing both players back to the locker room, then back to their hotels, then back into their own thoughts.
When they returned on Monday, the scoreboard said one thing. The body and mind said something else entirely.
“It was really tough stopping at the point of the match we were at,” Navarro admitted afterward. She had done the work on Sunday, built momentum, felt the rhythm. Then it was all stripped away by the rain delay and the restart. “I just felt like I had worked really hard to get to that point, and then all of a sudden, it’s like we’re gonna come out tomorrow and we both have a clean slate. It’s it’s really unique because you feel like you should feel like you’re ahead, but you kind of don’t.”
That mental reset shaped everything that followed.
Fine Margins, Frayed Tempers
The scoreline tells its own story: two tight tiebreak sets, then a decisive third. Navarro took the opener 7-6, Boisson hit back 7-6 in the second, and the match walked a tightrope until the American finally broke free in the third, 6-3.
By the time they met at the net, the tension had nowhere left to go.
They shared the customary handshake. Navarro, now officially through to the second round of her home Slam, lifted her arms in a brief, emotional salute to the crowd. Behind her, the cameras caught a very different reaction: Boisson, 23 and out in the first round, hammering her racket into the court in a flash of anger that summed up the thin line between survival and exit at this level.
It was a raw moment, the kind that strips away the polish of tour life and leaves only the sting of defeat.
New York Rolls On
For Navarro, this was exactly the kind of scrap a player wants to survive in week one of a major: long, awkward, disrupted by weather, mentally draining. Win it, and the tournament suddenly feels open. Lose it, and you’re left with a broken racket and a long flight home.
The US Open, though, does not pause for bruised egos or bent graphite.
The tournament runs through September 13, with the women’s singles final set for September 12 and the men’s title decided a day later. The stars are only just settling into the city, the night sessions are warming up, and the early rounds are already leaving emotional marks.
For Emma Navarro, one of those marks is a hard-fought, rain-split victory. For Lois Boisson, it’s the echo of a racket meeting concrete and the knowledge that, in New York, even a clean slate can feel brutally unforgiving.
