NEW YORK, September 19 — Elena Rybakina won the US Open 2026 women’s singles title on Saturday at Flushing Meadows, defeating two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 in the final. The victory gave the 27-year-old from Kazakhstan her third Grand Slam singles title and confirmed her rise to world number one, a position she had already secured by reaching the semi-finals in New York.
On the following Monday she became the 30th different woman to top the world rankings, replacing Sabalenka, who had held the position for the past 99 weeks.
A rivalry settled on hard courts
The win repeated her Australian Open success against Sabalenka in January 2026, meaning Rybakina won two of the four Grand Slam singles titles available in 2026 and has now won two of her three Grand Slam finals against Sabalenka, all on hard courts. Her route to the title was remarkable given her pre-tournament condition.
She aggravated a foot injury during her quarter-final in Cincinnati against Iga Swiatek last month, a little over a week before the final major of the year began, and arrived in New York unable to walk without pain. “I was so upset.
I didn’t know actually how it was going to be day by day,” Rybakina said. “We arrived in New York and did an MRI. It didn’t look that great.
I couldn’t even walk for the next few days without pain. I was lucky enough to have a very good doctor in Australia.
She was on the phone with us all the time and somehow, with the team, we made a plan.”
From doubt to dominance
Rybakina did no on-court training for a week, relying instead on daily recovery sessions in the gym plus trips for dinner and to the cinema to “switch the mind.” She won her first four matches at Flushing Meadows without dropping a set, including a win over four-time major winner Naomi Osaka, then beat Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the quarter-finals, outlasted third seed Coco Gauff in the semi-finals and outplayed top seed Sabalenka in the final.
In the final she won the first set despite landing only 27% of her first serves, winning 22 of 30 points behind her serve and not facing a break point. Sabalenka broke in the 12th game of the second set to force a decider, but Rybakina dominated the third.
She threw in two double faults while serving for the title but sealed it at 40-30 with her 12th ace of the match. “I was so unlucky with the injury, but I’m very proud. I still can’t believe it,” she said, clutching the trophy and reflecting that “some magic is happening” for her.
Former British number one Annabel Croft, speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, said: “The way she quietly walks around, she doesn’t really lift her head up and she gives no emotion away whatsoever. Rybakina is like a machine out there.
You never know what’s going on in her head,” adding that Rybakina has “the right personality to deal with” the number one ranking. Former British number one Laura Robson, on Sky Sports, called her “an all-surface player.” Rybakina has completed three parts of the career Grand Slam, with only a French Open victory missing.
She won Wimbledon in 2022, her second major at the Australian Open in January 2026, and now a third in New York, having never previously gone beyond the quarter-finals at Roland Garros, though she won a WTA 1,000 event on clay in Rome in 2023. She made early exits at this year’s French Open and Wimbledon.
What to watch next is whether Rybakina can carry this form onto clay, the one surface that has so far resisted her, and whether Sabalenka can respond after surrendering a ranking she had held for 99 weeks.
