Elena Rybakina WINS the US Open: New world No1 dethrones racquet-smashing Aryna Sabalenka in electric three-set battle in New York

First, she took her status as No1, and then Elena Rybakina dethroned Aryna Sabalenka as reigning US Open champion, dissecting the two-time winner in New York 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 to win her third Grand Slam title.

For Rybakina, victory adds lustre to the top spot, earned with a quarter-final win that felt incongruous. The Kazakh knew it, and stressed that she could not celebrate this mammoth achievement yet, not with the tournament ongoing. Now, she has put herself just one major away from the full set after wins in Melbourne and Wimbledon. She has also become the third woman this century to win both of the hard-court Slams in a single season.

The second was Sabalenka. She had hoped to make history herself, as the third woman in the Open era to ‘three-peat’, and become the undisputed Queen of New York. Instead, she stuttered, unable to consistently channel the ruthlessness which has defined her run over these two weeks, and was left in tears as she vowed to ‘do better’ next year.

Throughout the tournament, Sabalenka has stressed the importance of maintaining focus: tuning out the noise around concerns over her form, or whether she might hold on to her ranking, and channelling everything into her performance. But yesterday, she appeared to step onto court bubbling over, frustrated with the deficiencies in her performance even in the earliest stages of the match.

Sabalenka looked unsettled as the pair exchanged opening holds, the opposite of Rybakina’s picture of calm on the other side of the net. Rybakina normally makes the sport look effortless, but this was thrown into sharper relief by the quick unravelling of Sabalenka.

With every unforced error – 15 to Rybakina’s five – there seemed to be an expression, hands thrown up, head tipped back, frantic miming to her box, but rather than offer a release, Sabalenka only wound herself tighter. After the double fault that handed her opponent the first-set break, she was given a warning for smacking a ball away, but hitting was similarly frustrated in-play as Sabalenka looked for desperate winners she couldn’t make.

Much has been made of the potency of Rybakina’s serve, but the Kazakh carried off the opener well below her lethal best, making only 27 per cent of her first serves. When she pulled them off, Sabalenka was flummoxed. But even when she didn’t, there was an accuracy to her second that continued to cause problems for her opponent.

Rybakina, by contrast, had the very measure of Sabalenka’s serve, and was capable of dragging out the Belarusian’s service games and bullying her into defence under-fire. The 27-year-old peppered her with four break points before the fifth finally told for 3-2.

Sabalenka stepped back onto court visibly more settled. There were fewer errors, and fewer admonishments. But there was no drop in Rybakina’s level, as she continued to play her game, and play it well. She chased Sabalenka to 5-4, and pulled off an enormous hold in the 10th game to deny her rival her first break point.

Rybakina wasn’t to hold on for long, however. The two rivals’ meetings often spill into three sets, and Sabalenka’s improved accuracy – and mood – swung the second set.

This was the fuel Rybakina needed to act more decisively in the third, and immediately, she was all over Sabalenka’s serve, looking for cracks in her game. The pair met at deuce three times before the 28-year-old could see out her opening hold, while Rybakina skipped through hers, hungry for the next attempt to break her opponent.

She would not have to wait long, with Sabalenka again the picture of fury as she crashed her racquet into the floor, sent spinning by a string of Rybakina’s forehand winners. Instead of a second code violation warning, the punishment instead was the break Rybakina snatched.

In the seventh game, 2-4 down, Rybakina reached break point again, with the gift of a double fault from across the net. Sabalenka bent down to her knees, tipped her head to her racquet, as if praying for composure. Instead, more faults, more errors, broken again. Sabalenka’s last effort was to give the court another thrashing with her racquet. She all but walked off as Rybakina sent down her championship-winning ace.

But the new champion will not have needed grace from her opponent. She has her trophy instead.