Rybakina dethrones Sabalenka to claim first U.S. Open title and No. 1 ranking

Elena Rybakina arrived at the U.S. Open as the world's second-ranked player and left as its champion, dethroning Aryna Sabalenka with a 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 victory on Saturday and claiming the No. 1 ranking that had belonged to her opponent for 99 consecutive weeks.

For Rybakina, the 27-year-old Kazakhstani who was born in Russia, the tournament represented a turning point. She had come to Flushing Meadows for a decade without success, never advancing past the fourth round until this year. The U.S. Open had been a place of frustration, a venue where her power and precision seemed to misfire. This time, everything aligned. She had been managing a foot injury that forced her to withdraw from her Cincinnati quarterfinal against Iga Swiatek just weeks earlier, but she arrived in New York healthy and ready. "I honestly was coming here for the last 10 years, and it was never successful — nothing close to that," she said afterward. "It's just incredible. I'm falling in love with New York more and more."

Sabalenka, by contrast, had made Arthur Ashe Stadium her domain. The two-time defending champion had reached four straight finals there and six semifinals, a record of dominance that seemed unshakeable. She arrived at Saturday's match riding a 19-match winning streak at the Open, a streak that stretched back to her loss to Coco Gauff in the 2023 final. She was chasing history: a third consecutive U.S. Open title, something no player had accomplished since Serena Williams won three in a row from 2012 to 2014. But the summer had been strange for Sabalenka. After beating Rybakina at Indian Wells and Miami, she fell to Naomi Osaka in the fourth round at Wimbledon, then suffered consecutive fourth-round exits in Toronto and Cincinnati. The momentum that had carried her through the hard-court season seemed to have stalled.

Rybakina's path to the final had been her own kind of statement. She had already clinched the No. 1 ranking by reaching the semifinals, guaranteeing she would replace Sabalenka at the top of the rankings the following week. But she did not stop there. This was her third Grand Slam title overall and her second victory over Sabalenka on hard courts this year—she had beaten her for the Australian Open championship in January. The two players had met three times in 2024, with Sabalenka winning twice, but on the biggest stage, Rybakina's game proved superior.

The match itself revealed the different ways these two players wielded power. Sabalenka, a native of Belarus, swings from her heels with visible effort, grunting forcefully as she unleashes her shots, like a golfer driving for distance. Rybakina's power comes more quietly. There is little sound from her side of the net except the squeak of her sneakers, and she rarely shows stress. Coco Gauff, whom Rybakina had beaten in the semifinals, observed this quality afterward: "I think Elena is probably—not nonchalant, I don't want to say that, because she's not nonchalant—but just no reaction ever."

On Saturday, Rybakina did not play her best tennis by her own standards. She got less than half her first serves in, a significant shortfall for a player who leads the WTA Tour in aces. But she did something more effective: she put Sabalenka under relentless pressure with a dominant return game. She created 12 break chances and converted three of them, which proved to be exactly what she needed. In the opening game of the third set, Rybakina showed rare frustration, pulling a backhand wide on a break point, but she quickly took command of the match and never relinquished it.

Sabalenka's frustration grew visible as the match progressed. She looked repeatedly toward her coaches' box with her palms raised, searching for answers. When she double-faulted to give Rybakina a 3-2 lead in the first set, her frustration boiled over—she smashed her racket into the crowd and drew a warning from the chair umpire. In the second set, she mounted a genuine challenge, earning break points at 4-4 and again at 5-4, but Rybakina escaped both times. Sabalenka did break serve once more to force a tiebreaker, but the momentum had shifted irreversibly.

The victory earned Rybakina $5.5 million, the largest prize in Grand Slam history. Sabalenka collected $2.8 million, but the money meant little to her. After a brief hug at the net, she smashed her racket again. "I was just out there competing, trying to do my best with what I had there today," she said. "Not good enough." Rybakina, meanwhile, now holds three Grand Slam titles and has won three tournaments this season, tying Sabalenka and French Open champion Mirra Andreeva for the tour lead. She needs only the French Open to complete a career Grand Slam, having won Wimbledon in 2022 and the Australian Open earlier this year. The question now is whether she can finish what she started.