{"id":886916,"date":"2026-09-10T12:58:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886916\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T12:58:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T12:58:11","slug":"us-open-2026-aryna-sabalenka-jessica-pegula-coco-gauff-elena-rybakina-make-up-historic-semi-final-line-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/886916\/","title":{"rendered":"US Open 2026: Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Coco Gauff & Elena Rybakina make up historic semi-final line-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

By reaching the semi-finals, second seed Rybakina will become the new world number one<\/a> on Monday – ending Sabalenka’s 99-week reign at the top.<\/p>\n

But the second seed has described the top ranking as “just a number” and stressed that her focus remains focused on winning her third Grand Slam title.<\/p>\n

“It’s never quite the same if you become world number one having lost a Grand Slam final or semi-final just beforehand, so she will be trying to cap off an absolutely perfect couple of weeks by winning the title,” tennis correspondent Russell Fuller said on BBC Radio 5 Live.<\/p>\n

Standing in her way, however, is Gauff, who will have the home crowd’s backing on Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old American, who won the Flushing Meadows title in 2023 but suffered fourth-round exits in the following two years, said she has a different perspective to this year’s tournament.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes you’re just so focused on the now, now, now, because you want it now, and obviously you want to take advantage of your opportunities,” she said.<\/p>\n

“In the grand scheme of things, [I’m] definitely sitting here in a different mindset and perspective than I was last year.<\/p>\n

“It inspires me a little bit more to keep working, as I see how much I have improved in a year.”<\/p>\n

Gauff leads the head-to-head 2-1, but Australian Open champion Rybakina fought back from a set down to triumph in last month’s Canadian Open semi-finals.<\/p>\n

“I’m going to have some aces hit on me and some winners hit on me, but I’m going to keep fighting and give it my all. That’s all I can do,” Gauff said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By reaching the semi-finals, second seed Rybakina will become the new world number one on Monday – ending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":886917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-886916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=886916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/886916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/886917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=886916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=886916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=886916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}