Naomi Osaka’s latest New York run ended with a thud, not a flourish.
The two-time US Open champion was swept aside by No. 2 seed Elena Rybakina on Monday, beaten 6-1, 6-4 in the fourth round as Arthur Ashe Stadium watched one era trying to hold its ground against another gathering pace.
For Osaka, who lifted this trophy in 2018 and 2020 and reached the semifinals here last year, the defeat underlined a hard truth: in 2026, she still hasn’t played her way back into the sharp end of the majors. Not once this season has she moved beyond the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam.
For Rybakina, this was something else entirely. It was a statement.
Rybakina in full stride
The reigning Australian Open champion walked onto court with the air of a player who knows exactly where her game belongs. She played like it, too.
Rybakina tore through the opening set 6-1, her serve landing heavy, her first strikes off the ground pinning Osaka well behind the baseline. Osaka, who had spent plenty of emotional and physical energy in a grueling third-round win over Elise Mertens — 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 on Saturday night — never found the same depth or conviction.
The pressure told early. Rybakina broke, held, and broke again, and suddenly the set was gone in 27 one-sided minutes. Osaka’s trademark first-serve pop flickered only in flashes; Rybakina’s return read it cleanly and sent it back with interest.
The second set offered more resistance. Osaka steadied, held serve with more authority, and began to trade more evenly from the back of the court. The rallies lengthened. The noise grew. For a few games, it felt like the match might bend.
Rybakina didn’t let it.
Each time Osaka threatened to claw back the momentum, the 27-year-old from Kazakhstan shut the door with a big first serve or a flat, fearless backhand into the corners. A single break was all she needed to lock in the 6-4 set and with it her first-ever US Open quarterfinal.
She has already conquered Wimbledon and Melbourne. Now she is two wins away from adding New York to a rapidly expanding résumé.
Osaka’s season of almost
Osaka’s 2026 campaign has been a series of near-runs without a breakthrough. An abdominal injury kept her out of the Australian Open, halting any early-season rhythm before it could build. She reached the fourth round at Roland Garros, then pushed on to the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, but each time the push stalled short of the closing weekend.
In New York, she again looked like a threat. That three-set scrap with Mertens showed the old fight, the willingness to stay in rallies and trust her power when the margins tightened. Yet against Rybakina, the gap in form and confidence at the very top of the women’s game was laid bare.
This loss means Osaka will go a fifth consecutive year without a major title. For a player who once seemed to own the hard courts of Flushing Meadows, that’s a stark marker of how quickly the landscape has shifted.
A new threat on the other side of the draw
Rybakina’s reward is a quarterfinal on Wednesday against Qinwen Zheng, who produced one of the results of the tournament by ousting No. 8 seed Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-3 in Monday’s other fourth-round match.
Zheng’s win jolted the draw. Swiatek, a multiple major champion and frequent standard-bearer at the top of the rankings, exited earlier than many expected, and Zheng seized the opening with a composed, aggressive performance.
Now the 21-year-old rising star stands between Rybakina and a first US Open semifinal. One already owns two majors. The other just knocked out one of the game’s most formidable competitors.
Osaka, watching from the outside again, will have to decide how many more of these New York nights she’s willing to spend chasing the level she once set.
