Aryna Sabalenka stopped hitting for a moment.
On a practice court at Flushing Meadows, already through to the semi-finals, she glanced across at Arthur Ashe Stadium, or perhaps just up at a nearby screen. Elena Rybakina was out there, dismantling the draw and, with it, Sabalenka’s grip on the women’s game. The look on Sabalenka’s face was brief, disappointed, almost resigned. Then she turned back to work.
The threat had been coming for months. Maybe longer.
Rybakina had started stalking the No. 1 ranking last season, closing 2025 by beating Sabalenka in the WTA Finals Riyadh championship match. Weeks later, she came from 3-0 down in the deciding set in Melbourne, again taking Sabalenka down to win the Australian Open. Those weren’t one-off shots. They were markers.
By the time the tour arrived in North America, the chase had become a countdown. In Montreal, the 27-year-old reached the final and shoved herself firmly back into the conversation for the top spot. Then, suddenly, it looked like the whole push might stall. A left ankle and heel tendon problem in Cincinnati — what she called a “chronic foot injury” — forced her to withdraw from the quarter-finals and raised real doubt over her US Open.
She did not commit to New York until the last possible moment. Once she did, she barely looked back.
Rybakina tore through the opening week without dropping a set. Her demolition of Naomi Osaka in the round of 16 made the rest of the locker room sit up. Seven aces. Eighty-seven percent of points won behind her first serve. Controlled aggression, relentless accuracy. It was a statement win.
Sabalenka saw it all.
Asked about the ranking scenario as Rybakina’s surge gathered pace, Sabalenka tried to push it into the background.
“I completely separate myself from that, because it’s just guessing. It’s like if, if, if, if. I’m just trying to bring my best tennis every time I’m competing out there and basically fight for it,” she said after reaching the quarter-finals.
When the change at the top became official, the tone hardened.
“I don’t care!”
She insisted she would rather leave New York with the trophy than with the No. 1 beside her name.
Rybakina, meanwhile, kept walking through the draw. Former US Open champion Coco Gauff, roared on by a home crowd, threw everything at her in the semi-final and still came up short. Gauff took the opening set. Rybakina responded, absorbed, then overpowered, winning in three and booking her first US Open final.
Then it was Sabalenka across the net.
The Belarusian entered the final as the favourite, a familiar queen of Arthur Ashe. She had not lost on that stadium in two years and stood on the brink of history, one win away from becoming only the third woman ever to win the US Open three times in a row.
The night refused the script.
Rybakina’s 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 victory, sealed in 2 hours and 21 minutes, felt like a handover. Not gentle, not ceremonial. Earned.
In her first US Open final, Rybakina broke for 3-2 in the opening set despite landing just 27% of her first serves. The number was ugly; the tennis was not. She compensated with brutal, flat groundstrokes that pinned Sabalenka back and took time away. The scoreboard, not the stat sheet, told the story: 6-4 Rybakina.
Her serve clicked into gear in the second set, climbing to 61% first serves in. She carved out two break points and missed both. Sabalenka, clinging on, found enough resistance to keep herself alive. Rybakina saved two set points to hold for 5-5, but the pressure finally cracked at the wrong time. Two games later, Sabalenka broke and dragged the match level.
The decider asked the question: who wanted the season?
Rybakina answered first. She broke for 2-1, then tightened the screws. Sabalenka, usually the one dictating with first-strike power, found herself reacting, chasing, overhitting. At 5-2, Rybakina stepped in, closed at the net, and broke again with a volley winner. A few points later, under the lights, she uncorked her 12th ace on match point — the same finishing touch she had used in Melbourne eight months earlier.
Different Slam, same ending. Rybakina at the top.
This US Open capped the finest Grand Slam season of her career and pushed her to the pinnacle of the sport. She became the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1995 to beat the world No. 1 in two major finals in the same year. Back then, Graf took down Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario at Roland Garros and Monica Seles in New York. In 2026, the name in both losing columns was Sabalenka.
When the WTA rankings update on Monday, Rybakina will be listed as the 30th woman to reach No. 1 in the Open Era. The climb is complete. The real test starts now.
For Sabalenka, the past 72 hours in New York stripped everything away. First the ranking. Then the US Open crown. For the first time since 2022, she will finish a season without a Grand Slam title.
Her frustration boiled over on court after the final, the rawness of the loss on full display. Yet by the time she left New York, the defiance had returned, the competitor already recalibrating her target.
“I don't even know how many weeks I was able to be there, but it was amazing. Let's see if Elena can beat me in that. If she continues playing like that, I'm in trouble.”
The chase has flipped now. Rybakina sits at the summit, Sabalenka looking up. One has the number, the other the memory of how it feels — and a long season ahead to try and take it back.
