One win from world No. 1: Rybakina overpowers Osaka to reach her first US Open quarterfinal
Elena Rybakina hit 29 winners to nine and lost her serve once all evening, beating two-time champion Naomi Osaka 6-1, 6-4 to reach a US Open quarterfinal for the first time and complete the set at all four majors. One more win in New York and the Kazakh, still without a set dropped this fortnight, will be world No. 1.
Elena Rybakina, US Open 2026 | © AP Photo/Kirsty Wiggleswort/ SIPAh
The US Open was the one major that had never given Elena Rybakina a quarterfinal, and she took it apart in straight sets to get one, the Kazakh No. 2 seed beating Japan’s No. 13 seed Naomi Osaka 6-1, 6-4 on Monday evening in New York. One more win and she will be world No. 1.
It was as one-sided as a 6-1, 6-4 scoreline can be. Rybakina hit 29 winners to nine, held all nine of her service games, faced a single break point and won 87% of the points behind her first serve. Osaka held five of eight, threw in five double faults to one, and saved two match points before it ended. Rybakina won 60 of the 101 points played, and 46% of the points she received, against 27% the other way.
Rybakina fills in the one gap on her Grand Slam record
This is her eighth Grand Slam quarterfinal and her first here, at the eighth attempt, having equaled her best previous US Open result in the last 16 a year ago. It also completes the set: quarterfinals or better at all four majors.
She has done it without losing a set, past American wildcard Thea Frodin 6-3, 6-2, Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro 6-2, 6-4 and Ukrainian Yuliia Starodubtseva 7-6 (6), 6-3. That makes her the fourth active player to reach the quarterfinals at all four Grand Slam events without dropping a set on the way, after Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Aryna Sabalenka. She had previously managed it at Roland-Garros in 2021 and 2024, at Wimbledon in 2022 and at the Australian Open in 2026.
One more win and the ranking is hers
The victory was her 46th of the season, a total only Jessica Pegula has bettered on the WTA Tour this year. It leaves her a single win from the world No. 1 ranking, which a place in the semifinals would secure outright; she can also reach it through results elsewhere in the draw. Sabalenka, who has held the top ranking since October 2024, must win the title to keep it.
Rybakina has been at her career-high No. 2 since March, and the season that took her there began with the Australian Open, where she beat Sabalenka in the final for a second major title after Wimbledon in 2022. Her North American hard-court summer produced a final at Toronto and a quarterfinal at Cincinnati.
Osaka falls short of a fourth US Open quarterfinal
Osaka, the champion here in 2018 and 2020, was chasing a seventh Grand Slam quarterfinal and a fourth in New York, a year after reaching the semifinals. She had reached the last 16 by beating Russian Anastasia Zakharova 7-6 (6), 7-6 (3), Czech Katerina Siniakova 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 and Belgian No. 23 seed Elise Mertens 6-3, 3-6, 7-5, a third fourth round of the season after Roland-Garros and a quarterfinal at Wimbledon.
Against the top 10 it has been a harder year. She came in with one win in seven such matches in 2026, over Sabalenka at Wimbledon, and Monday made it one in eight. Rybakina now leads their head-to-head 2-0, after winning their only previous meeting in the Toronto quarterfinals this summer 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-4.
Rybakina plays Chinese qualifier Zheng Qinwen in the quarterfinals, the Olympic champion having beaten Iga Swiatek 7-5, 6-3 from 0-5 down in the first set earlier on Monday.
