Elena Rybakina is the new No. 1 player in women's tennis, and now she has a chance to prove it with a Grand Slam trophy. The Kazakhstan star booked her spot in Saturday's US Open final by outlasting Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 on Thursday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium, setting up a title match against two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka, who survived a first-set battle with Jessica Pegula earlier in the day.
Two contrasting semifinals
Sabalenka needed just one hour and 20 minutes to see off No. 3 seed Pegula 7-5, 6-2, according to the official WTA match recap. The two traded holds through the first 11 games before Sabalenka broke in the 12th to close out the opener, then pulled away in the second set as Pegula won only 5 of 19 points on her second serve. Sabalenka faced a single break point the entire match and saved it.
Rybakina's path was tougher. Gauff came out sharp, breaking early to take the first set 6-3, but Rybakina answered by grabbing an early break in the second set for a 3-1 lead. Gauff clawed back to 4-4 before double-faulting in the 10th game, handing Rybakina two set points and, eventually, the set. The third set followed the same script — Rybakina broke for a 5-3 lead, Gauff broke back to 5-4, but a wide smash on match point ended the American's run, as detailed in ESPN's account of the match.
A changing of the guard at No. 1
The ranking shift actually happened two days earlier, when Rybakina's quarterfinal win over Qinwen Zheng was enough on its own to end Sabalenka's 99-week reign atop the WTA rankings. Thursday's win over Gauff confirmed that Rybakina — now the tour's 30th different world No. 1 — will start next week at the top of the game regardless of how the final plays out, though a title would put an exclamation point on the rise.
For Sabalenka, the semifinal was another chapter in one of the sport's most remarkable recent streaks. The win over Pegula was her fourth straight trip to the US Open final (2023 through 2026) and her eighth consecutive appearance in a Grand Slam hardcourt final overall — an Open Era record, surpassing the run of seven shared by Steffi Graf, Martina Hingis and Novak Djokovic. It was also her third straight year beating Pegula in New York, pushing her head-to-head edge in the rivalry to 10-4.
"I think this season — especially at the beginning — I played a lot of incredible matches at a really high level. But today I really performed well," Sabalenka said afterward, adding that a recent loss to Pegula on grass had left her hungry heading into the rematch: "I was super desperate."
Elena isn't nonchalant... she just never reacts. I'm sure it can seem that way, but we all feel nerves. How much it affects her, we have no idea.
Coco Gauff, on Rybakina's on-court demeanor
Rybakina, for her part, was characteristically measured in assessing her own performance rather than the ranking milestone. "I feel like I definitely need to step my game up, serve much better than today and stay aggressive," she said after the win over Gauff — a reminder that the two-time major finalist rarely spends long celebrating before turning to the next opponent.
That opponent is now Sabalenka, who leads the pair's rivalry but will walk into Saturday's final as the underdog in rankings for the first time in nearly two years. The championship match is set for 4 p.m. local time Saturday at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Sabalenka is chasing a third consecutive US Open title and a shot at reclaiming No. 1 later this year; Rybakina is chasing her first US Open crown and a ranking-validating statement in the same afternoon. Either result will close out one of the more compelling fortnights in recent US Open history.
