Elena Rybakina Upsets Coco Gauff to Reach US Open Final
Elena Rybakina walked into Coco Gauff’s house, heard the noise, felt the energy – and shut it all down.
On a hot, heavy night at Flushing Meadows, the Kazakh ripped up the script, coming from a set down to beat the home favourite 3-6 6-4 6-4 and book a US Open final against defending champion Aryna Sabalenka. The New York crowd roared for Gauff, Michelle Obama watched on from the stands, but it was Rybakina who kept her nerve and her swing when it mattered most.
“I took a deep breath, tried to talk positive with myself and just told myself I need to fight and try to show good tennis,” she said on court, still catching her breath. She had needed all of that self-talk.
Gauff started like a player ready to ride the moment. She soaked up Rybakina’s weight of shot, redirected pace, and used the noise in Arthur Ashe Stadium as fuel. The American broke in the sixth game, dragged more errors from the fourth seed, and snapped up the opening set, the crowd sensing another surge towards a second straight title in New York.
The pressure kept coming at Rybakina. Gauff’s second serve, often a target, arrived heavy enough to stop the Kazakh from dictating at will. Rybakina’s timing flickered in and out. The rallies stretched, the tension grew.
Then Gauff blinked.
A loose patch from the American in the second set opened the door. Rybakina barged through it, tightening her baseline game and striking cleaner, flatter through the court. The errors that had leaked from her racket in the first set began to dry up, Gauff’s forehand misfired more often, and the match suddenly felt level not just on the scoreboard, but in control.
By the decider, the Australian Open champion had the bit between her teeth. She stepped inside the baseline, turned on the power and broke for 5-3, the sound inside Ashe dipping as the upset loomed. Gauff, as she has all summer, refused to go quietly, breaking straight back to keep the match alive and spark one last roar from the stands.
It didn’t last. Serving to stay in it, Gauff faltered again. Rybakina pounced, broke once more and finished the job, silencing the arena with a clean, cold close.
“Right now, it sucks,” Gauff admitted afterwards. “My dad said ‘you accomplished so many great things this summer’. I was like I don’t care about the summer. So right now that's where my head is at.”
Rybakina, chasing a third Grand Slam title, had outlasted the home hero and the moment. Waiting for her on Saturday is the one player who has turned New York into her own private fortress.
Sabalenka steamrolls Pegula to stay on three-peat track
Earlier under the Ashe lights, Aryna Sabalenka sent a clear message: if anyone wants this trophy, they’ll have to rip it from her hands.
The top seed overpowered Jessica Pegula 7-5 6-2, leaning on her trademark ferocity to blast 29 winners and seven aces, and move to within one win of a remarkable third straight US Open title.
“I was so desperate for the win, I wanted it badly,” she said, and it showed from the opening games.
Pegula, the 2024 runner-up and the picture of composure early on, looked ready to drag Sabalenka into a long night. She saved an early break point with a crisp forehand winner and kept her service games clean, while Sabalenka wrestled with her own standards, smashing her racket on the court after a double fault in the ninth game.
The American held for 5-5, the crowd sensing an opening. Sabalenka slammed it shut. She locked in from the baseline, found her range, and broke Pegula on set point with heavy, punishing groundstrokes that pinned the third seed behind the baseline.
From there, the defending champion began to look like herself again.
Her forehand, her biggest weapon, became the hammer. She cracked another forehand winner on break point to move 3-1 up in the second set, and Pegula’s tidy start evaporated under the barrage. Errors crept in, then multiplied. Sabalenka broke again on match point to finish the contest with authority and walk off to a respectful ovation from a crowd that had started the night firmly in Pegula’s corner.
“I can say that I feel confident and I feel mentally and physically really strong right now,” Sabalenka said, the belief clear in her voice.
Pegula, 32 and still chasing a first major, could only acknowledge the scale of the task she had just faced.
“I don't know who p****d her off today - hopefully it wasn't me totally, but it might have been - I don't know. She played insane. She played a super-high level. Honestly, I don't really know if there was much I could do today.”
Now New York gets the final it deserves: Rybakina, the calm destroyer, against Sabalenka, the relentless champion. One hunting a third Slam, the other chasing a three-peat at Flushing Meadows.
Power versus power. Nerves versus nerve. On this court, with this history on the line, who dares blink first?
