Elena Rybakina Crowned US Open Champion Over Aryna Sabalenka

Aryna Sabalenka stopped hitting for a moment.

On a distant screen near the practice courts, Arthur Ashe Stadium flickered into view. The news was clear enough even from afar. Her face tightened, just for a second, before she turned back to the baseline and resumed training. The world No. 1 ranking that had defined her reign was slipping away, and everyone in New York knew who was taking it.

Elena Rybakina had been coming for a while.

This was not a sudden coup but a long, hard climb. It started last season, when Rybakina closed 2025 by beating Sabalenka in the WTA Finals Riyadh championship match. Weeks later, she dug herself out from 3-0 down in the deciding set in Melbourne, turning the Australian Open final into another bruising statement win over the same opponent.

By the time the tour hit North America, the numbers and the narrative were aligned. Rybakina, 27, reached the Montreal final and shoved herself right back into the conversation for the top ranking. Then her body threatened to betray her. A left ankle and heel tendon problem flared in Cincinnati. She called it a “chronic foot injury,” pulled out of the quarter-finals, and left her US Open status hanging in the balance.

She did not commit to New York until the last possible moment.

Once she did, she barely took a backward step.

Rybakina did not lose a set in the opening week. Her demolition of Naomi Osaka in the round of 16 shifted the mood of the tournament. Seven aces. Eighty-seven percent of points won behind her first serve. It was ruthless, efficient tennis, the kind that makes locker rooms sit up and pay attention.

Sabalenka was watching.

Asked about the ranking chase while Rybakina carved through the draw, Sabalenka tried to brush it all aside.

“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, her response sharpened.

“I don’t care!”

She insisted she would take the US Open trophy over the No. 1 spot every time.

Rybakina, meanwhile, just kept winning. Former US Open champion Coco Gauff, roared on by a partisan crowd, grabbed the first set in their semi-final. It didn’t matter. The reigning Australian Open champion adjusted, tightened her game, and ran away with the next two sets. Another big name, another big stage, another win.

Then came Sabalenka.

The Belarusian walked into Arthur Ashe Stadium as the favourite and the queen of this particular court. She had not lost there in two years. A third straight US Open title would have put her in a club with only two other women in history. The stage was set for a statement of her own.

Instead, the night turned into Rybakina’s coronation.

In a final that swung and snarled across 2 hours and 21 minutes, Rybakina prevailed 6-4, 5-7, 6-2. It was her first US Open final, her first match of this magnitude under the New York lights, and she handled it with the calm of someone who had been here a dozen times.

She broke Sabalenka for 3-2 in the opening set despite landing just 27% of her first serves, a number that would cripple most players. Rybakina compensated with ferocious, flat groundstrokes that pinned Sabalenka back and ripped through the court. The set went her way, and the favourite suddenly looked vulnerable.

The second set told a different story. Rybakina’s first-serve percentage jumped to 61%. The scoreboard, though, refused to budge in her favour. She created two break points and could not take either. Serving at 3-4 and 4-5, she had to fend off two set points just to stay alive, clawing her way to 5-5. Sabalenka, stung but unbowed, broke two games later to drag the match into a decider and ignite the crowd.

For a moment, the momentum felt like it had shifted.

Rybakina ripped it back.

She broke for 2-1 in the third set, then again for 5-2 with a crisp volley winner that cut through the noise and the tension. A few points later, she ended it with her 12th ace, the same kind of authoritative finish she had used to close out the Australian Open eight months earlier. Same opponent. Same message.

With that, Rybakina completed the best Grand Slam season of her career and climbed to the summit of women’s tennis. She became the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1995 to beat the world No. 1 in two Grand Slam finals in the same year. Back then, Graf toppled Arantxa Sánchez-Vicario in Paris and Monica Seles in New York. Now it is Rybakina’s name that sits alongside that kind of company.

When the WTA rankings update on Monday, she will officially become the 30th woman to hold the No. 1 spot in the Open Era.

Sabalenka’s week told a harsher story. In the space of 72 hours, she lost the ranking that had defined her status and the title that had defined her dominance in New York. She leaves 2026 without a single Grand Slam trophy, the first time since 2022 that a season has ended that way for her.

The on-court meltdown after the final — the smashed racquet, the visible frustration, the tears she tried to swallow — underlined how much it all hurt. Yet when she left New York, the defiance was back.

“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,” she said, already casting her eyes toward the next chase.

Rybakina has the crown now. Sabalenka has the scars and the motivation. The question for the rest of the locker room is simple: can anyone stop these two from turning the No. 1 ranking into a private battle?