Elena Rybakina stops Coco Gauff’s U.S. Open surge to face Aryna Sabalenka in the final

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2026 U.S. Open women’s semifinals

NEW YORK — Elena Rybakina will take over the No.1 ranking come Monday no matter how she performs at this U.S. Open.

But the 27-year-old who plays for Kazakhstan has been mighty clear for all 36-odd hours she’s occupied tennis’s top spot: the number next to her name is a nice achievement.

What she really cares about is collecting titles.

Rybakina will have a chance to win her second Grand Slam title of the year and back up that ranking coup after coming back to beat Coco Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 Thursday in the U.S. Open semifinal.

She battled a raucous, pro-Gauff crowd and Gauff’s spectacular athleticism to seal the win. The 22-year-old American has a knack for forcing her opponents to live outside of their comfort zone for a few hours every time she plays them. Rybakina, who lost the first set, wobbled in the second set and then nearly gave up her chance for victory in the third, survived.

Her prize, along with reaching her first U.S. Open final, is the opportunity to play Aryna Sabalenka in Saturday’s final, the 28-year-old who is aiming for a third straight U.S. Open title, who will be hungry to prove that losing her No. 1 ranking to Rybakina does not mean losing her grip on the sport.

It’s the first No. 1 vs. No. 2 final on the WTA Tour at a major since the 2025 French Open, when Gauff defeated Sabalenka.

“I will need to come with all the energy I have, bring my best serve against Aryna, and make the right decisions in the right moment, because most of the times, it’s a tight, tight score,” Rybakina said in a news conference.

For Gauff, the loss closes out a U.S. Open that demonstrates her growth over the course of a year. Thursday was her first time back in the semifinals in New York since 2023, just a year after she made the audacious decision to re-tool one of the most elemental shots in tennis on the eve of last year’s tournament.

That timing was not ideal. No tennis player would recommend trying to work on one’s game while trying to win high-stakes matches. But Gauff’s serve needed addressing, and the man who could help, Gavin MacMillan, was available. He might not have been had she waited.

Last year’s U.S. Open was a frustrating tournament for Gauff, who racked up ridiculous volumes of double faults and scrapped her way through matches. A year later, she has gained the perspective that bad times don’t last forever.

She served 12 double faults in her quarterfinal win Wednesday against Mirra Andreeva. She’s learned to ride the wave.

“I think I played almost every match on my terms. I think the worst match for me was maybe the quarterfinal, where I maybe fell back into some old habits, but in 24 hours I was able to switch that,” Gauff said in a news conference.

“I’m looking at the other women, other semifinalists. They’re older than me, like, three, four years older than me. I’m just trying to think of how much work I put into the year, how far I’ve come, and now I’m just excited to keep putting the work in for another year, another two years, and see where I’m at at 24, 25 and where my game can take me.

“Hopefully it will be on the winning end of matches like this.”

Gauff has come a long way. But she faced one of the best servers in the game Thursday, and it was Rybakina’s ability to hold serve easily, which in turn helped her come up with clutch tennis , that made the difference.

With Gauff serving at 2-3, Rybakina earned two break points with two gutsy, big backhands but Gauff got out of trouble with some choice serving. Gauff was fighting for holds, though, while Rybakina rolled through easy points on her serve.

She earned herself another break point at 3-4, 30-30 when Gauff, grunting with desperate effort, couldn’t redirect a forehand and sent a shot into the doubles alley. On the next point she sent a backhand into the net and Rybakina had a chance to serve for the match, at 5-3.

Her service game wasn’t so easy this time. Gauff worked her way to 40-30 with some stellar defending, and on her first break point of the set, Rybakina shuttled a backhand into the net.

But Rybakina had battled Gauff, the rapturous atmosphere on Arthur Ashe Stadium and her own mistakes all night. The new world No. 1 wasn’t about to let all of her work fade into nothing. She hung with Gauff for one final long rally, threw up a lob and Gauff sent the overhead long, putting the title Rybakina so yearns for within closer reach.

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