Even when long established as a grand slam champion and a conqueror of all surfaces, Elena Rybakina was always considered lesser than the most successful players of her era. She was one of the most devastating shotmakers in the world, a threat to everybody everywhere, but there were always a couple of more consistent and mentally tougher players above her.
She leaves New York, finally, as the undisputed best tennis player on the planet, the new standard bearer of women’s tennis, after following up her snatching of the No 1 ranking from Aryna Sabalenka by succeeding her as the US Open champion. As she has done throughout this unforgettable week, the Kazakhstani showed her toughness in another spectacular tussle with her great rival, closing out her time at Flushing Meadows with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 victory over Sabalenka, the top seed and two-time defending champion.
Before the final, Rybakina had not really played her best tennis this year in New York, but the whole title run stands as the greatest mental performance of her career. She has had to overcome an achilles injury that sidelined her for a week before the tournament and left her uncertain if she would even compete. There was also the potentially suffocating pressure of trying to clinch the world No 1 ranking while being reminded of the exact results required of her to do so. She faced four consecutive grand slam or Olympic champions in the second week of the tournament. She cleared every hurdle without hesitation.
Her trials throughout the past two weeks imbued her with the confidence to play such an assured match against her biggest rival to close out the week. Here, the 27-year-old began the match with her serve, the most important shot in her arsenal, completely misfiring, yet she still showed off the breadth of her game by completely dominating an increasingly dishevelled Sabalenka off the ground. When the Belarusian fought her way back into the match, overturning the momentum and forcing a final set, Rybakina immediately reset, saving her best tennis for the most important stretch.
In addition to taking Sabalenka’s No 1 ranking, Rybakina has now also taken her status as the best hard-court player in the world. She now holds the three biggest hard-court titles: the Australian Open, the US Open and the WTA Finals. She joins figures such as Lindsay Davenport, Jennifer Capriati, Ash Barty, Angelique Kerber and Virginia Wade as three-time grand slam champions. Having previously won Wimbledon in 2022 and the 2026 Australian Open, Rybakina is suddenly a French Open away from completing the career grand slam.
This was a historic encounter, just the second time in the 38-year history of the Australian Open and US Open both being played on hard courts that the same two rivals had competed in both finals, and a rare tussle between the top two players in the world with the ranking certain to switch hands. No matter the terrain or stakes, these two players just seem to force the highest level of tennis from each other. This was the third time they had faced each other in a major final and those meetings have yielded three supreme battles.
As always, they started at a frenetic pace, but it quickly became clear that the cleanliness of Rybakina’s shotmaking was on another level. What ensued was a quite remarkable spectacle. Rybakina, owner of by far the best first serve in the world, started a grand slam final with her biggest strength in total disarray. She landed a shocking 27% of first serves in the set, eight of her 30 attempted first serves landing in. No matter, every other part of her game was flowing perfectly. She used her destructive return to place relentless pressure on Sabalenka’s serve, she dominated the baseline exchanges and her backhand was completely flawless. She gave her opponent no room to breathe.
Considering how difficult things had been for Sabalenka all summer, she had performed incredibly well to reach the final and give herself a shot at a third consecutive US Open title but she was clearly unsettled by the occasion and her opponent’s level from the beginning. After double-faulting to give up the decisive break at 2-3 in the first set, she received a code violation warning after striking a ball into the crowd. She was visibly frustrated and tense throughout the match, particularly considering how badly she failed to take advantage of facing so many second serves.
Still, Sabalenka fought hard. A strong run of serving in the second set allowed her to gain rhythm and although Rybakina’s first serve improved, she became slightly more erratic from the baseline. At 5-4, with the pressure beginning to weigh heavily on Rybakina’s shoulders, Sabalenka made her move, pounding a down-the-line backhand return winner to earn her first break points of the match at double set point. Sabalenka was too tense to take advantage of the two second serves that followed, but she was putting the Rybakina second serve under sustained pressure. At 6-5, after muscling her way to a third set point, Sabalenka pounded a backhand return winner to force a decider.
Even in the face of a roaring, charging, two-time US Open champion, Rybakina was totally unfazed. She reset immediately and her serve was finally at its precise, destructive best. Rybakina flitted through her early service games in set three, firing down aces and forcing her opponent to keep up. Sabalenka, like so many players over the past year, simply could not.
