NEW YORK, September 14 — Elena Rybakina beat Aryna Sabalenka 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 on Saturday in the 2026 U.S. Open final at Flushing Meadows, denying Sabalenka a third consecutive title in New York and taking the world No. 1 ranking in the process. The story begins with a scoreline that looks straightforward and a match that was anything but. Rybakina, 27, of Kazakhstan, entered as the No. 2 seed and beat the No. 1 seed.
It is her first U.S. Open title and her third Grand Slam title overall — and her second major of 2026, after she also defeated Sabalenka to win the Australian Open in January.
A serve that misfired and still won
At its heart, this final turned on Rybakina’s serve and her baseline control. She kept the ball down the middle and denied Sabalenka angles, smothering her from the back of the court. The numbers from the first set tell a strange story.
Rybakina landed just 8 of 30 first serves, about 27 percent — an unusually low figure for a player widely considered to have the best serve in the game — and still won the set. She won 68 percent of points on her second serve in that opening set, well above the roughly 50 percent win rate players consider a decent benchmark.
She also captured 64 percent of the points on Sabalenka’s second serve. That last figure matters. Sabalenka had built her run to the final partly by attacking opponents’ second serves, notably against Jessica Pegula in the semifinals, but she could not exploit Rybakina’s.
Again and again she either missed the second-serve return or could not do enough with it. Serving at 4-3 in the first set, Sabalenka had two looks at second serves — one at deuce, one at ad-40 Rybakina — and sent both into the net.
In the final game of the first set, Sabalenka saved a set point with a deep forehand return, but Rybakina won the longest rally of the game, nine shots, with a backhand that clipped the back of the line.
Sabalenka’s moment, and the miss
Sabalenka did not go quietly. In the second set she earned two set points with Rybakina serving at 4-5, including a scorching return winner off a 117 mph wide first serve, and the Arthur Ashe Stadium crowd — which had adopted Sabalenka as favorite after years of her playing the role of the enemy there, including a loss to Coco Gauff in 2023 and wins over Jessica Pegula and Amanda Anisimova in the following years — roared for her. She missed a neutral forehand long on the first set point.
She took the second set anyway, 7-5, and for a while the match belonged to her. Rybakina took it back in the third, 6-2, and with it the title.
What the win changes
With the victory, Rybakina becomes the new world No. 1 on Monday, replacing Sabalenka at the top of women’s tennis. Sabalenka, the world No. 1 for the past two seasons and the two-time defending U.S. Open champion, ends 2026 without a Grand Slam title. Only Chris Evert and Serena Williams have won the U.S. Open three times in a row.
Sabalenka has spoken openly about her affection for New York, including her table at the Polo Bar and Lounge and the long rides out to Flushing Meadows. The Athletic tennis reporters Ava Wallace and Matt Futterman analyzed the final and its implications for tennis.
What to watch next is the ranking itself. Rybakina arrives at No. 1 on Monday with two majors in a single season and a serve that won a set on a day it barely landed. Sabalenka leaves New York without a Slam in 2026 for the first time in years, and with a hard-court season behind her that she will want to forget.
