Emotions run high and Sabalenka smashes racket after Rybakina clinches US Open

Emotions run high and Sabalenka smashes racket after Rybakina clinches US Open Jump to content

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Emotions run high and Sabalenka smashes racket after Rybakina clinches US Open

Last updated

13 September 2026 1:04am BST

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!Aryna Sabalenka takes her frustration out on her racket after defeat

*Aryna Sabalenka takes her frustration out on her racket after defeat

Credit

: Reuters/Eduardo Munoz*

Fiona TomasWomen’s Sport Reporter, live updates.

Simon BriggsTennis Correspondent and Senior Feature Writer, at Flushing Meadows

Last updated

13 September 2026 1:04am BST

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Elena Rybakina must be the least demonstrative athlete on the planet. Nobody has so mastered Rudyard Kipling’s advice, emblazoned on the entrance to Wimbledon’s Centre Court, about treating triumph and disaster just the same.

Yet even Rybakina was moved to give a double-fisted victory salute after claiming a three-set victory in a wonderful US Open final. Her reaction prompted Martina Navratilova to tell Sky Sports viewers that “I’ve never seen Elena show so much emotion after winning anything.”

> A maiden US Open title for the world No 1 🏆 pic.twitter.com/6WJfvitn7f
>
> — Sky Sports Tennis (@SkySportsTennis) September 12, 2026

This has been quite a fortnight for Rybakina, who came in with a damaged Achilles but still scythed her way to her first US Open title, dominating her chief rival Aryna Sabalenka and living up to her recent promotion to the top of the world rankings.

This match felt like watching one of those Japanese monster movies in which two enormous “kaiju” – comic-book characters of mythical size and ferocity – knock seven bells out of each other while tiny townspeople run around in terror.

With Sabalenka’s serve topping out at 117mph, and Rybakina’s at 121mph, we must have been watching the most devastating pairing the game has ever seen. Not even Venus and Serena Williams, when they were contesting eight major finals during the Noughties, were able to hit the ball as hard as this.

!Rybakina serves

*Elena Rybakina’s serve topped out at 121mph during the final

Credit

: AP/Yuki Iwamura*

Sabalenka and Rybankina have now played four slam finals, with the spoils evenly shared after this 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 grapple in the Apple – as a boxing promoter might have referred to it.

There is certainly something pugilistic about the way these two go toe-to-toe. The emphasis is on landing the first blow, so the rallies tend not to be particularly long: only four points out of 193 went beyond nine shots. But the precision of the ball-striking was breathtaking. At one point in the first set, Rybakina had hit eight winners to just a single unforced error – the sort of ratio to send coaches starry-eyed.

Sabalanka arrived on court in her showy jewellery – which is worth more than £300,000 for the full set, according to the manufacturers – and an orange Nike dress that put one in mind of the Dutch national football team. “Total tennis” may have been the goal, but sometimes your opponent doesn’t allow you to play. This was the case in the early stages as Rybakina – whose own yellow-and-black outfit evoked the natural warning signs of a wasp or hornet – seemed to flush every ball right out of the centre of her racket.

Sabalenka actually did a sterling job of digging herself out of trouble in her service games, saving four of five break points in the first set. But this still wasn’t enough, given that Rybakina was defending her own serve with the same serenity that characterises everything she does.

!Sabalenka plays a forehand

*Sabalenka kept digging herself out of trouble but it was not enough

Credit

: Reuters/Mike Segar*

The polarities reversed in set two, as Sabalenka began to get her flamethrower of a forehand working. After almost 90 minutes of play, she finally chiselled out some break points – two in game 10, which she couldn’t convert, but then another in game 12 which set up the decider.

The huge contrast in personalities became all too evident in set three. Sabalenka appeared to be at war with herself, emoting and venting almost as if she were an actress projecting her feelings to the whole of this 24,000-seater stadium. As she faced the prospect of slipping a double-break down, she hunkered down on her haunches in despair.

Meanwhile, Rybakina could have been relaxing in a flotation tank for all the stress she showed. Admittedly, she did hit a couple of double-faults as she served out for victory, but she also came up with two aces and two forehand winners in the same game.

Sabalenka, meanwhile, allowed her racket to slip to the ground in frustration and barely managed a brief embrace at the net. She had earned a code violation in the first set for slamming a ball out of the stadium, and could easily have picked up a second – and thus a point penalty – after another ball that she batted away struck a cameraman, but chair umpire Greg Allensworth showed leniency.

Asked about tossing her racket, Sabalenka said:**“**It’s really tough to control your emotions when you lose in the final of the Grand Slam and when you were trying to go for three-peat. So I just wanted to let it go, because if I would hold it inside, right now or here or there on the court, I wouldn’t be able to say a word or I would just go not really nice over there.

“So I just wanted to let all of that aggression and disappointment go outside.”

The trophy was presented by 2006 champion Maria Sharapova – one of the few women who can look down on 6ft Rybakina, especially when wearing heels. The fans in Arthur Ashe Stadium had given at least 80 per cent of their support to Sabalenka, who won the previous two US Opens on this court, but they applauded warmly, knowing when they had seen a performance for the ages.

! Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan poses with the trophy and Maria Sharapova

*Maria Sharapova gave the trophy to Rybakina after her performance for the ages

Credit

: Getty Images/Sarah Stier*

Sabalenka wept as she told the fans that “I wish I could have performed a little bit better,” but she did also manage some gracious words of congratulation to her chief rival. Rybakina’s speech was relatively short but to the point, explaining that she had never previously prospered at this event, where her deepest run in seven appearances had stopped at the fourth round.

“The quiet man is turning up the volume,” said the former Tory leader Ian Duncan Smith, in an attempt to position himself as a credible prime minister. Change the sex of that comment, and he could have been talking about Elena Rybakina.

* Latest updates

Fiona TomasWomen’s Sport Reporter, live updates.

Simon BriggsTennis Correspondent and Senior Feature Writer, at Flushing Meadows

12:15AM

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That brings our live coverage of tonight’s final to a close. Make sure to join us for the men’s final tomorrow evening, when American hopeful Ben Shelton meets Alexander Zverev, which gets underway at 7pm.

11:53PM

A fine fortnight for Rybakina

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The new No 1 steps up onto the makeshift stage and begins thanking her team, the sponsors and Sabalenka.

She recovered brilliantly after losing the second set and was the better player in the decider.

She adds the 2026 US Open crown to her Australian Open win in January and her Wimbledon title from 2022 and is presented with a $5.5m cheque. Not bad for a fortnight’s work. Maria Sharapova is on hand to present her with the t