Aryna Sabalenka's Epic Comeback to Semifinals
Aryna Sabalenka stared at the scoreboard and thought it was over.
Down 2-4 in the third set, broken again, screaming at herself after a pair of double faults, the world number one looked on the brink of a brutal exit. Linda Noskova was serving thunderbolts, swinging freely, and walking the tightrope better than anyone had managed against Sabalenka at this US Open.
Then the switch flipped.
Sabalenka clawed her way back, dragged the match into another tiebreak, and once again owned the pressure moments, beating the Wimbledon champion 7-6(7-1), 3-6, 7-6(10-7) to reach the US Open semifinals for a sixth straight year.
A champion pushed to the edge
For five rounds, Sabalenka had looked untouchable in New York. No dropped sets. Barely a hint of vulnerability. Noskova changed that in an instant.
The Czech sixth seed came out with a clear plan and the weapons to execute it. She cracked 18 aces, saved seven of nine break points, and repeatedly pinned Sabalenka behind the baseline with heavy, fearless groundstrokes. When Sabalenka broke early in the first set with a forehand lasered into the corner that Noskova didn’t even move for, it felt like the familiar script.
Noskova tore it up.
She broke back in the ninth game with a flurry of brutal baseline hitting and pushed the set into a tiebreak. That should have been Sabalenka’s territory. Earlier this year she put together a record run of 21 consecutive tiebreak wins at the majors, and she looked every bit that specialist again, racing through the first six points and sealing the opener 7-1.
The tone of the match suggested Sabalenka had weathered the storm. Noskova refused to accept that.
Noskova swings, Sabalenka stumbles
The second set belonged to the Czech. Sabalenka’s firepower flickered. Her first serve wobbled. Noskova’s did not.
Sabalenka struggled to read the Czech’s delivery and began to overpress on return. At 3-2, a double fault from the Belarusian handed Noskova a 4-2 lead and all the momentum. The Wimbledon champion tightened her grip, held firm on serve, and closed out the set 6-3, levelling the match and turning Arthur Ashe Stadium into a tension chamber.
Noskova then went for the throat.
She continued to bully Sabalenka’s second serve, and midway through the deciding set, another pair of double faults from the top seed cracked the door open. Noskova stepped through, breaking for 4-2 as Sabalenka let out a raw scream of frustration. The upset was no longer a possibility; it was the looming reality.
Sabalenka admitted later that in that moment she thought, “That’s it, the match is over.” Strangely, that resignation freed her.
The comeback of a serial contender
With nothing left to protect, Sabalenka started to swing again. The shoulders loosened. The feet moved faster. The shots went after the lines instead of shying away from them.
She broke back in the eighth game to level at 4-4, suddenly reading Noskova’s serve again and stepping inside the baseline. The Czech, who had been so composed for two and a half sets, finally blinked. A couple of short balls, a couple of rushed errors, and Sabalenka had her opening.
They traded blows to 6-6, and once the match reached the decisive tiebreak, the balance tilted toward the player who has built a reputation on thriving in exactly this kind of chaos.
Sabalenka surged ahead in the breaker, leaning on her first serve and unloading on the forehand. Noskova kept swinging, but the margins narrowed. At 9-7, Sabalenka took the ball, bounced it once, and fired an ace to end it. No rally. No doubt. Just a clean strike to finish a match that had teetered on the edge for so long.
She soaked in the roar and pointed to the stands, crediting the New York crowd for dragging her through a contest that demanded every ounce of her resilience. The win lifts her to 21 victories in her past 22 matches at the US Open, a staggering run at the year’s final major.
Chasing Serena’s shadow, writing her own line
By reaching the semifinals for the sixth consecutive year, Sabalenka has joined rare company. The last woman to do that in New York was Serena Williams, who strung together six straight semifinal appearances from 2011 to 2016 and collected three titles in that span.
Sabalenka is now chasing a third straight crown at Flushing Meadows. The comparison to Serena’s dominance is inevitable, but the path she’s carving has its own texture: power bordering on reckless, emotion always at the surface, and a willingness to ride the edge of disaster to find her best tennis.
Next up is the winner of the all-American showdown between third seed Jessica Pegula and 26th seed Emma Navarro. Different styles, different threats, but one shared problem: they now have to face a champion who has just proved she can survive both her opponent and her own doubts.
Sabalenka walked off Ashe with the look of someone who had stared at the exit and turned away from it. If this is what her “match is over” tennis looks like, what happens when she believes from the first ball?
