Rybakina denies Sabalenka a US Open three-peat for a second major of the year

Two. That is how many Grand Slam titles Elena Rybakina has won in 2026. She beat top seed Aryna Sabalenka 6-4 5-7 6-2 in the US Open final for her third career major, after Wimbledon in 2022 and this year's Australian Open, and it means every Grand Slam final the pair have played in 2026 has gone Rybakina's way.

Rybakina won the underlying numbers almost everywhere they mattered: 36 winners to Sabalenka's 32, 24 unforced errors to her 35, and 71 percent of points won on her own serve against 61 percent for Sabalenka. She landed fewer first serves, 47 percent to Sabalenka's 58, but won 85 percent of the points behind them against Sabalenka's 71, and hit 12 aces to Sabalenka's six. By the finish she had taken 103 of 193 total points to Sabalenka's 90, 53 percent to 47.

The pattern turned only once. Rybakina broke in the fifth game of the first set for a 3-2 lead and served it out 6-4. Sabalenka leveled by breaking back in the twelfth game of the second, her only conversion from three break points all match, to take it 7-5. In the third, Rybakina broke again in the third game for 2-1 and once more in the seventh for a 5-2 lead, needing only three of her own twelve break points across the match, and served out the title 6-2. She closed it on her second match point of the afternoon, after Sabalenka had saved the first.

The title is Rybakina's third at a Grand Slam, after Wimbledon in 2022 and this year's Australian Open, and her 14th tour title overall. Both Grand Slam finals she and Sabalenka played in 2026, in Melbourne and now New York, have gone to Rybakina, though Sabalenka still leads their head-to-head 10 wins to 8 after taking their other two meetings of the season, the Indian Wells final and the Miami semi-final. The result also denies Sabalenka a third straight US Open title after her wins in 2024 and 2025. Along the way, Rybakina won an 8-6 first-set tiebreak against Yuliia Starodubtseva in the third round, beat 13th seed Naomi Osaka 6-1 6-4 in the fourth, and came back from a set down to beat Qinwen Zheng in the quarter-final and fourth seed Coco Gauff in the semi-final. Sabalenka needed two tiebreaks to get past sixth seed Linda Noskova in the quarter-final before beating third seed Jessica Pegula 7-5 6-2 in the semi-final. The two have now met four times in 2026 alone, and this rivalry does not look finished.

Match tale, 12 September 2026, sources: US Open, api-tennis