Elena Rybakina Becomes World Number One After US Open Victory
After 99 weeks, the women’s game finally has a new name at the top. Elena Rybakina.
The Kazakh, long the hunter in Aryna Sabalenka’s rear-view mirror, sealed her ascent to world number one with a gritty US Open quarter-final victory over Zheng Qinwen, 3-6 6-1 6-4. It was not her cleanest performance of the fortnight. It did not need to be. It was the one that changed the rankings.
She becomes the first player from Kazakhstan, man or woman, to reach the summit of the singles standings. A landmark for the country. A vindication for a player who has quietly stalked this moment for almost a year.
A scrap in New York, a crown on Monday
For the first time at this US Open, Rybakina dropped a set. Zheng came out swinging, took the opener 6-3 and asked questions of the second seed’s movement and timing. Rybakina answered them with force.
The response was brutal. She raced through the second set 6-1, the serve suddenly biting, the forehand ripping through the court. The match tightened again in the decider, Zheng pushing hard and even earning a break point, but Rybakina slammed that door shut and edged away to the finish line.
One match, one win, and a reign ends. Sabalenka’s run of 99 consecutive weeks as world number one — stretching back to 21 October 2024 and standing as the sixth-longest streak in WTA history — will close on Monday. Rybakina will walk into the second week of September as the new standard-bearer of the tour.
And yet, she barely blinked at the thought.
“It’s just a number right now. My goal is to win the tournaments which I play,” the 27-year-old said, before adding a note of realism that only a champion who has climbed and fallen understands: “It’s an amazing achievement, but you know how quickly everything can change in tennis ranking-wise.”
The trophy, not the ranking, is the obsession. It shows.
The chase that started with a sting
This coronation did not begin in New York. It began with a sting in Wuhan at the end of 2025.
Rybakina lost to Sabalenka in the quarter-finals there last October, a defeat that underlined the Belarusian’s hold over the top of the game. One week later, Rybakina hit back, taking the Ningbo Open title. Then came the turning point: the season-ending WTA Finals.
In that pressure cooker, she met Sabalenka again and this time did not flinch. She beat her rival to close the year with the biggest title of her career outside the majors and, more importantly, proof she could outlast Sabalenka when everything was on the line.
She carried that belief into 2026. In Melbourne, the two biggest servers in the women’s game collided again in a major final. Rybakina, almost four years on from her breakthrough at Wimbledon, dug through three tight sets to win the Australian Open, her second Slam and her clearest statement yet that this was no brief purple patch.
Sabalenka struck back in the spring, taking their Indian Wells final and Miami Open semi-final. Rybakina responded on clay, lifting the Stuttgart title while Sabalenka’s form wobbled. The duel at the top became the defining rivalry of the season, a tug of war played out across continents and surfaces.
Results still stung. Early exits at Roland Garros and Wimbledon hurt Rybakina’s momentum. A run to the final in Toronto, where she lost in straight sets to Iga Swiatek, steadied the ship but did not yet tilt the rankings.
Then came Cincinnati and another blow. A left ankle problem forced her to retire from a quarter-final against Swiatek. She later admitted the injury had been “bothering me for a long period of time” and had stopped her pushing off properly on serve. She insisted it was under control, but her US Open preparation was far from ideal. By her own admission, she “wasn’t great” physically and barely trained in the week before the tournament.
Yet here she is, on the brink of another Slam final, having already secured the number one ranking she spent a year chasing.
A rivalry that could define an era
The twist? The story of this US Open might still end with the same two names under the lights.
Rybakina will face either Coco Gauff or Mirra Andreeva in Thursday’s semi-finals. Sabalenka, still clinging to her title ambitions even as her ranking slips away, meets Jessica Pegula. If both hold their nerve, New York will get the sequel to this year’s Australian Open final.
In Melbourne, Rybakina walked away with the trophy. On hard courts, with both serving thunder and trading first-strike blows, their matches have become appointment viewing. A US Open final between them would not just be about a title. It would be a battle for control of the sport’s narrative.
For now, Rybakina has banked the first of her two New York goals: world number one. The second — the US Open trophy — is the one that truly keeps her eyes sharp.
The coach, the split, the return
Her rise is not just about results. It is also about a partnership that has survived scrutiny and separation.
Rybakina has worked with coach Stefano Vukov for almost seven years, across two distinct spells. Their first stint ran from 2019 to 2025, a period in which she transformed from promising talent to Wimbledon champion.
They split in 2025. Later that year, Vukov was banned from the WTA Tour for breaching its code of conduct after an independent investigation into his behaviour towards Rybakina. He denied any wrongdoing. Rybakina publicly said she was never mistreated by him.
She pushed for his return at the start of 2025. Vukov appealed the suspension successfully and rejoined her team in August. The impact was immediate. In their first tournament back together, she reached the US Open fourth round for the first time in her career. From there, she built the late-season surge that culminated in the WTA Finals title and set her on this path to number one.
The partnership, questioned and dissected from the outside, has delivered the pinnacle of the sport from the inside.
Now, with the ranking secured and New York humming around her, Rybakina stands one step from another Slam final, with the prospect of Sabalenka waiting at the end of the draw.
The number next to her name will change on Monday. The real question is whether the trophy cabinet will, too.
