Sabalenka Advances to US Open Last 16 Despite Cannabis Disruption

Aryna Sabalenka’s title defence briefly paused for an unusual reason on Louis Armstrong Stadium. The top seed wasn’t battling nerves, an injury, or even Kamilla Rakhimova’s groundstrokes. She was battling the smell.

At 3-0 up in the first set, Sabalenka walked towards the chair and told umpire Eva Asderaki-Moore that “someone is smoking weed”, asking her to intervene “because it’s so strong”. The official relayed the concern over her radio and gestured towards the stands. The match stopped for a moment, the air didn’t, and then Sabalenka got back to work.

Once play resumed, the disruption barely left a trace on the scoreboard. The two-time defending champion swept past the Uzbek player 6-3 6-4, tightening her grip on a tournament she has turned into her personal stronghold.

This isn’t a one-off complaint at Flushing Meadows. Over the past week, Katie Boulter has called the cannabis smell “distracting”, while Harriet Dart and Francesca Jones have also remarked on it. In previous years, Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev voiced similar frustrations. Smoking is banned on site, but with Corona Park just beyond the grounds and recreational cannabis legal in New York for adults 21 and over, the scent has a habit of drifting in.

It did nothing to loosen Sabalenka’s game.

Chasing a fifth Grand Slam singles crown and a third straight US Open title, the 28-year-old played with the authority of a woman who knows this court, this stage, and this pressure. She dropped just four points on serve in a dominant opening set, her power immediately overwhelming Rakhimova.

The pattern barely shifted. Rakhimova raised her level in the second set, held her ground in the rallies and forced Sabalenka to hit through her more often, but the Belarusian always looked a step ahead. The pressure finally told at 4-4, when Sabalenka earned the crucial break to move 5-4 in front, then coolly served out the match.

The numbers underlined the gap. Sabalenka cracked 10 aces to Rakhimova’s two, never faced a break point, and controlled the tempo from the baseline. This was businesslike dominance, with just enough edge to remind the field why she has now won 16 consecutive matches at Flushing Meadows.

That streak puts her on the brink of rare territory. No woman has won three US Open singles titles in a row since Serena Williams from 2012 to 2014. Sabalenka is now four wins away from matching that feat, and nothing so far — not opponents, not expectation, not even a cloud of cannabis drifting in from Queens — has knocked her off course.

Next she will meet either American Taylor Townsend or Russian 15th seed Diana Shnaider, who beat her in the French Open quarter-finals in June. A familiar threat, a partisan crowd, or a bit of New York haze in the air — Sabalenka looks ready to take on all of it.