Aryna Sabalenka began her bid for a third consecutive US Open title with a straight-sets victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, overcoming recent struggles and a wobbly second set in New York.
World number one Aryna Sabalenka arrived at Flushing Meadows carrying the weight of a demanding defence campaign and months of indifferent form. The Belarusian star, who lifted the Miami Open trophy in March and established a 3,000-point lead in the rankings, endured a tricky patch that included early exits at the French Open and Wimbledon. Now, Australian Open champion Elena Rybakina, who faces American wildcard Thea Frodin on Tuesday, trails her by just 434 points. It means that Sabalenka, who is defending 2,000 points at Flushing Meadows, will have to win the title and hope Rybakina falls before the semi-finals to extend her 99-week reign as world number one. Home favourites Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff could also secure the number one ranking with a title triumph. Yet as she stepped onto the giant Arthur Ashe venue for her opening match, where she has won two of her four Grand Slams, she found familiar comfort.
Sabalenka remarked after dispatching Osorio 6-2, 6-4 that she felt that venue was one of her favorite stadiums.
Navigating a Wobbly Opener and a Stacked Draw
While the first set saw Sabalenka storm ahead against the 52nd-ranked Osorio, the second frame exposed the vulnerabilities that have dogged her summer campaign. She struggled on serve, landing 48% of her first serves and hitting 12 unforced errors. But the four-time major singles champion fended off three break points and struck decisively at 4-4 before serving out victory after one hour and 28 minutes.
Sabalenka will face Russian qualifier Polina Iatcenko next. Because of her post-Miami slump—which featured fourth-round exits at the Canadian Open and Cincinnati Open earlier this month—Sabalenka has everything to prove heading to New York. Later on Monday, American Amanda Anisimova celebrated her 25th birthday with a dominant 6-1 6-3 win against compatriot Ashlyn Krueger. The crowd on Louis Armstrong treated the 10th seed, who was runner-up to Sabalenka at last year’s US Open, with a rendition of ‘happy birthday’ afterwards. Wimbledon champion Linda Noskova made it safely through with a 7-5 6-1 win over American Katie Volynets, while Karolina Muchova, who lost to Noskova in the SW19 final, dropped just three games in a 58-minute demolition of Austria’s Sinja Kraus. French Open finalist Maja Chwalinska was less fortunate as she fell to a 6-2 6-3 defeat by home hope Taylor Townsend.
Chasing the Company of Evert and Serena Williams
The historical stakes loom large over Flushing Meadows. Should Sabalenka win a third successive US Open title, she would become only the third woman to do so in the Open era after Serena Williams and Chris Evert. However, she will need to improve considerably to navigate a stacked draw in New York.
Despite her turbulent summer, the four-time Grand Slam singles champion insisted her mindset remains resolute. Always confident,
the 28-year-old told reporters about her mindset as she prepared to launch her bid for a third straight US Open crown. She added that physical and mental hurdles over the past few months have only hardened her resolve, noting that if people threw tough challenges at her, she would come back only stronger.
Rivals Circle as the Fortnight Unfolds
The women’s draw offers no shortage of threats to the defending champion. Home favourites Jessica Pegula and Coco Gauff could also secure the number one ranking with a title triumph. Rybakina has been ramping up the pressure on Sabalenka, but the Kazakh star’s US Open bid was thrown into doubt when she withdrew from her quarter-final in Cincinnati with an apparent Achilles tendon injury. Rybakina pulled out of the US Open mixed doubles but practised overnight at Flushing Meadows, where she was drawn to face American wild card Thea Frodin in the first round. She could face eighth-seeded Iga Swiatek in the quarter-finals, the two major winners headlining a tough quarter that also includes four-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka, former Australian Open winner Madison Keys and Swiss veteran Belinda Bencic. Former champions Gauff and Swiatek arrive in New York on the backs of their first titles of 2026, with fourth-seeded Gauff facing a potential quarter-final against fifth-seeded Mirra Andreeva.
Meanwhile, the men’s side of the tournament experienced immediate shockwaves following Novak Djokovic’s earliest Grand Slam exit in 20 years, falling in five brutal sets to Mariano Navone on a dramatic opening day Sunday. The 39-year-old was reduced to tears by a crowd trying to will him to victory, but his physical distress left him powerless, and has thrown his Grand Slam future into doubt. Djokovic’s elimination makes an already wide-open men’s draw even more intriguing—Jannik Sinner is absent with a bad knee, while Carlos Alcaraz is only just returning from a four-month injury layoff. On the men’s side, recent Cincinnati Masters champion Arthur Fils suffered disappointment, losing his opening match to Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas. Fils, 22, entered the contest with the highest expectations of his career, having this month become the first French player to win a Masters 1000 in over a decade, and had won all five of his previous encounters with Tsitsipas. But Fils, ranked 11th, fell to Tsitsipas 4-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-1, 6-4. Tsitsipas, a former top five player who has slumped to 53 in the world, stated that he was speechless and did not know what to say, adding that it was an amazing start to the tournament.
