Aryna Sabalenka seeks a third US Open in a row. Since 2017 only she kept the title.
Aryna Sabalenka, the world number one and champion in 2024 and 2025, reached the third round with a win that took 53 minutes.
What happened
Two-time defending champion Aryna Sabalenka beat US Open debutant Polina Iatcenko 6-1 6-1 in 53 minutes, one of the quickest Grand Slam wins of her career, to reach the third round, where she meets Kamilla Rakhimova.
The women’s final is on Saturday . Aryna Sabalenka, the world number one, is 28. She is trying to become only the third woman to win three US Open titles in a row, after Chris Evert and Serena Williams. She beat Polina Iatcenko, a 22-year-old qualifier, to reach the third round.
Her 2025 defence was the exception. She beat Amanda Anisimova 6-3 7-6 (3) in her third US Open final in a row and won her fourth major title. In each of the three years before that, the reigning champion lost by the fourth round.
The world No 1 ranking is also at stake. Sabalenka has not won a major this season. The BBC’s reporter noted that she must win the title again to have any chance of stopping Elena Rybakina taking the No 1 ranking. Rybakina goes top if she reaches the semi-finals, even if Sabalenka keeps the title.
The Pattern
Only one of the last eight defending champions won the title again. That was Sabalenka herself, in 2025. Below is how each defence ended for the women who came back to New York as champion, newest first, from reports in the Guardian, BBC Sport and Al Jazeera.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
History is against a third title. Seven of the last eight defences ended by the quarter-finals, and only one, Sabalenka’s own in 2025, reached the final at all. Our title forecast started near one in three, well above that record, because the one success belongs to the player in question.
The weak point is that the eight defences were made by six different players, and Sabalenka is a different kind of champion from Raducanu or Kerber. She has played three US Open finals in a row and six hard-court major finals in a row, and she beat a qualifier in 53 minutes this week.
One hard-court upset would end the title forecast, and this group of defences produced one in every year but one. The final market fails only if that upset comes before the final.
Disclaimer
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