Elena Rybakina Defeats Sabalenka to Win US Open Title
Aryna Sabalenka arrived in New York chasing history. She left Flushing Meadows with a broken racquet and a title run snapped at two.
In a heavyweight final between the top two players in the women’s game, Elena Rybakina overpowered the two-time defending champion 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 to claim the US Open crown and halt Sabalenka’s bid for a third straight title.
This was not a gentle passing of the torch. It was a collision.
Rybakina holds her nerve, Sabalenka loses hers
From the start, the contest felt like a shootout. Both women went after their serves, traded heavy groundstrokes, and refused to back off the baseline. The first set turned on the smallest margins, but those margins belonged to Rybakina, who played the bigger points with more clarity and less noise.
Sabalenka’s frustration simmered early. Unforced errors crept in, her timing wavered, and each missed opportunity only tightened the screws. Rybakina, by contrast, stayed cold. She took the first set 6-4 and looked ready to run away with it.
The pressure finally told on Sabalenka’s composure. After dropping that opener, she made no secret of her anger, sending a clear message across the net: she was feeling it, and not in a good way. Her body language sagged, the racket swings grew wilder, and her search for quick, aggressive replies only fed Rybakina’s momentum.
Yet Sabalenka is not a two-time US Open champion by accident. She clawed her way back into the match, forcing the pace in the second set and, for a time, bending the contest to her will. The errors were still there, but so was the fight. She scraped and swung and finally dragged the final into a deciding set, 7-5, to keep her title defence alive.
Just as the stadium braced for a classic third set, Rybakina shut the door.
A ruthless final push
The decider was one-way traffic. Rybakina tightened her game, dialled in on serve and returned with intent. Sabalenka’s resistance, which had looked so stubborn in the second set, began to fray. The unforced errors that had haunted her all afternoon returned at the worst possible moments.
Rybakina dominated the final set 6-2, ripping through Sabalenka’s service games and dictating the rallies with a calm, relentless aggression. When championship point arrived, she didn’t blink. A booming ace down the middle sealed the title, the match, and a cheque worth $AU7.6 million.
Sabalenka could only watch the ball flash past. Then the emotion finally boiled over.
As Rybakina turned to her box, arms raised in celebration, Sabalenka hurled her racquet across the court. It hit the surface with enough force to snap. The image was brutal and honest: a champion laid bare by a performance she knew was short of her best.
Australian great Todd Woodbridge, calling the match on Nine, did not sugar-coat it.
“That is what Aryna Sabalenka thought about that performance. Broken, smashed,” he said. “That is something that she clearly still hasn’t got control of, the emotions in the big matches. It is never easy losing, there is no doubt about that. But she let her opponent know in the second set that she was feeling the heat. Great champions don’t really carry themselves like that.”
The racquet went, but the respect stayed. After retrieving the shattered frame, Sabalenka walked to the net and embraced Rybakina.
Tears for Sabalenka, a third major for Rybakina
The runner-up ceremony underlined the emotional toll. Sabalenka fought back tears as she addressed the crowd.
“Thank you everyone for your support. It was amazing playing in a tournament with you all,” she began, voice tight. “I am disappointed but I want to congratulate Elena on a great year. I wish I could’ve performed a little bit better, but I guess there’s next year.”
For Rybakina, this was another step in a career that is beginning to assemble a serious résumé. The US Open title is her third major, after Wimbledon in 2022 and the Australian Open earlier this year. Only Roland-Garros now stands between her and a full set of Grand Slam trophies.
Her own words hinted at just how unlikely this run had felt from the inside.
“It’s tough to find words right now, I didn’t expect nothing like this coming to this tournament,” she said, trophy in hand. She spoke of managing an Achilles injury, of needing everything to align, and on this hardcourt fortnight, it did. “I was dealing with (an Achilles) injury, but everything aligned together on my side. Aryna you’re a great champion, you push me to such limits.”
Then came the nod to the city that had just watched her break Sabalenka’s streak.
“It’s just incredible, I’m falling in love with New York more and more. This atmosphere is just unbelievable and doesn’t feel real right now.”
A champion in London, a champion in Melbourne, now a champion in New York. With the US Open trophy in her hands and Paris still unconquered, the question is no longer whether Elena Rybakina belongs at the top of the sport.
It’s how many of these nights she intends to own.
