Here is a proof that holds under a slight additional hypothesis, namely, suppose that we also have $\|A^*B^*-I\| < \epsilon$. The conclusion is also stronger than the one requested, as under this additional hypothesis, the claim holds for all unitarily invariant norms, not just Schatten-$p$ norms. >**Theorem ([Thm. IX.7.2, [Bha97][1]])**. Let $A=UP$ be the polar decomposition of $A$. Then, for every unitarily invariant norm $\|\cdot\|$ and every unitary matrix $V$ \begin{equation*} \|A-U\| \le \|A-V\|. \end{equation*} Applying this theorem to the direct sum $A\oplus (-A^*)$ we have \begin{equation*} \left\|\begin{pmatrix} A & 0\\ 0 & -A^* \end{pmatrix} - \begin{pmatrix} U & 0\\ 0 & -U^* \end{pmatrix}\right\| \le \left\|\begin{pmatrix} A & 0\\ 0 & -A^* \end{pmatrix} - V^*\right\| \end{equation*} for any unitary matrix $V$. Since $B$ is a contraction, we can [dilate it to the unitary matrix][2] \begin{equation*} V := \begin{pmatrix} B & (I-BB^*)^{1/2}\\ (I-B^*B)^{1/2} & -B^* \end{pmatrix}. \end{equation*} Since the norms involved are unitarily invariant, we therefore obtain \begin{equation*} \|(A-U)\oplus(U-A)^*\| \le \left\|\begin{pmatrix} A & 0\\ 0 & -A^* \end{pmatrix}V - I\right\| = \|(AB-I)\oplus (A^*B^*-I)\|. \end{equation*} But notice that $s_j(A-U)=s_j(U^*-A^*)$, for each singular value $s_j$ for $1\le j \le n$. Therefore, we can conclude the following weak-majorization between the singular values: \begin{equation*} s(A-U) \prec_w \max\{s_j(AB-I),s_j(A^*B^*-I)\}_{j=1}^n. \end{equation*} From this under our hypotheses $\|AB-I\|<\epsilon$ and $\|A^*B^*-I\| < \epsilon$, it follows that $\|A-U\| < \epsilon$. **Note:** It should be possible to get rid of the extra assumption, but am not sure as of now. [1]: https://books.google.com/books?id=lh4BCAAAQBAJ [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilation_(operator_theory)