Aryna Sabalenka Survives Thrilling Quarter-Final at US Open

Aryna Sabalenka looked up at the Arthur Ashe night sky and, for a few tense minutes, believed her reign in New York was over.

Then she tore the script up.

The two-time defending US Open champion survived a ferocious challenge from Wimbledon winner Linda Noskova, clawing back from the brink to win 7-6 (7-1) 3-6 7-6 (10-7) and reach yet another semi-final at Flushing Meadows. It took just under two and a half hours, and every ounce of nerve she had.

At 4-2 down in the deciding set, Sabalenka was hanging on. At 2-0 behind in the match tie-break, she looked spent. By the end, she was thundering down a second-serve ace on match point, arms aloft, her title defence somehow still alive.

“I honestly thought that that's it, the match is over,” she admitted on court. That feeling showed in the way she swung freely when it mattered most.

A champion on the edge

For long spells, this did not look like a classic Sabalenka performance. It looked like another chapter in the familiar story of a brilliant frontrunner wrestling with her own emotions.

She flew out of the blocks, breaking sixth seed Noskova in the opening service game and storming to a 5-2 lead. The ball exploded off her strings, the rallies short, the intent brutal. Serving for the set, she blinked. A double fault, one of four in the match, opened the door and Noskova walked through it, breaking back and briefly silencing the crowd.

Sabalenka steadied herself in the tie-break, ripping through it 7-1, but the fragility on serve lingered. The missed first serves, the double faults at key moments, the break points that came and went. The match never felt under control, even when the scoreboard suggested otherwise.

In the second set that tension finally cost her. She squandered three break points early, then at 3-2 down, another double fault at 30-40 handed Noskova the break. The Czech settled, tightened her patterns, and dragged the match into a decider, 6-3, with a calm authority that belied the occasion.

Noskova brings the heat

Noskova did more than just hang around. She out-hit Sabalenka on the stat sheet: more winners, fewer unforced errors, seven of nine break points saved. For a player on an 11-match Grand Slam winning streak, she played like she belonged on this stage.

When Sabalenka coughed up two more double faults and was broken for a third time in the match, Noskova pounced. She held to love for 4-2 in the third set and, for the first time, the defending champion looked genuinely lost.

The Belarusian’s history of emotional unraveling in big moments – most recently from a set up in her French Open quarter-final defeat – hovered over the stadium. This had the feel of another implosion.

Instead, something shifted.

Sabalenka’s shoulders loosened, her feet quickened. She began to swing with the abandon of a player who had already made peace with defeat. The pressure that had suffocated her game for an hour suddenly worked in her favour.

She reeled off three games in a row to flip the set, hammering returns, stepping inside the baseline, forcing Noskova into corners she had previously escaped. The crowd sensed the change and roared with every ferocious forehand.

Noskova, to her credit, refused to fold. She steadied again, held on, and dragged the match to a deciding tie-break. Against this version of Sabalenka at the US Open, that is usually a dangerous place to be.

Tie-break specialist

Sabalenka walked into the breaker carrying a remarkable record: nine consecutive tie-break wins at the US Open, a streak dating back to 2021. Within seconds, that aura looked under threat. Noskova jumped out to a 2-0 lead, striking cleanly, unafraid.

That was as far as the upset went.

The top seed tightened her game, cutting out the errors, going after her first strike with ruthless clarity. Point by point, she dragged the tie-break back, leaning on the power that has made her the most feared hard-court player of the season.

At 9-7, with the match on her racket, she did something that summed up the night. After all the double faults, all the wobbles, she went for a bold second serve. It clipped the line for an ace. Ten straight US Open tie-break wins. Nineteen consecutive victories at the tournament. Title defence still intact.

This was only her second quarter-final win since March, a stark contrast to her blazing early-season form that brought trophies in Brisbane, Indian Wells and Miami. On clay and grass she faltered, and her North American hard-court swing stuttered with last-16 exits in Toronto and Cincinnati.

Here, though, in the city where she has never lost a quarter-final in six attempts, Sabalenka has rediscovered something close to her best – even if it comes wrapped in chaos.

History and the ranking line

With this win, Sabalenka becomes the first woman since Serena Williams in 2016 to reach six straight US Open semi-finals. She has not lost in New York since the 2023 final, and now stands one match away from a fourth consecutive final.

The result also keeps her, for now, at the top of the rankings. Her grip on world number one is temporary: if Elena Rybakina beats Zheng Qinwen on Wednesday, the Kazakh will overtake her regardless of what Sabalenka does for the rest of the tournament.

On court, that looming shift barely showed. The fight, the roar, the defiance – this was about survival, not spreadsheets.

Next she will face either American third seed Jessica Pegula or fellow Belarusian Emma Navarro, the 26th seed, in a semi-final that will test whether this version of Sabalenka – scarred by recent collapses but hardened by escapes like this – can finally turn resilience into another New York title.

Noskova leaves with a painful defeat but a performance that underlines her arrival at the top level. She outplayed the champion for long stretches, matched her physically, and forced her to find something deeper.

Sabalenka found it. The question now is whether that edge, that wild, late-night refusal to let go of her crown, is the spark that carries her through one more brutal New York week.