Aryna Sabalenka suffered a wild meltdown inside Arthur Ashe Stadium on Saturday as the two-time defending champion was denied a shot at a historic three-peat at the US Open, losing to Elena Rybakina 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 in the final.
She beat herself up throughout the 2-hour, 21-minute ordeal, which was littered with self-inflicted mistakes.
Moments into the opening set, right after Rybakina snatched an early break – the first of the three she secured in the US Open final – Sabalenka smashed a ball into the stands in frustration and received a code violation from the chair umpire. The Belarusian never recovered in the set, but bounced back in the second, securing a break to force a decider.
However, the unforced errors kept piling up, 35 in all, and Sabalenka was broken again in the third set as Rybakina justified her new world No. 1 ranking with a second Grand Slam title of the year.
Sabalenka smashed her racquet as she took her bench after congratulating Rybakina on the win, and later vented at the cameraman when the camera panned towards her during the post-match proceedings.
“It’s really tough to control your emotions when you lose in a final of a Grand Slam and when you were trying to go for 3-peat. If I were to hold it inside, right now or on the court I wouldn’t be able to say a word. I would go not really nice over there. I wanted to let go of all that aggression and disappointment outside,” she said.
The frustration was still evident when Sabalenka took the stage for the post-match presentation. Asked to step forward for the customary speech after collecting the runners-up award, she choked back tears.
“That’s the last thing I want to do right now is do speech, but I’ll try my best,” the tearful runner-up said. “Thank you, everyone. Thank you for support throughout the two weeks. It was amazing playing in front of you all.”
She still showed her class as she addressed Rybakina, to whom she had also lost the Australian Open final earlier this year.
“Obviously, I’m disappointed, but I want to congratulate Elena on an incredible year, an incredible result. Well deserved. Enjoy it, have fun tonight, tomorrow, and until the end of the season, so I can play and win some titles! Thank you,” she joked.
“Thank you all of the sponsors for making this event possible and thank you everyone who helped me throughout these two weeks. I really felt like home here and I cannot wait to come back next year.”
The defeat left Sabalenka without a Grand Slam title for the first time since 2022. But after making a deep run following a difficult summer, she hopes to take positives from her US Open campaign.
“I’ll just keep working hard and keep improving my tennis,” Sabalenka said. “There’s lots of things to take from this tournament. As experience shows, I only come back stronger, and all of these lessons this season definitely already made me stronger. Definitely going to motivate me for the next year to do a better job.”