Aryna Sabalenka moved a win away from her third straight U.S. Open title, beating Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-2 on Thursday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka blasted her way out of what was a dead-even match for most of the first set, pouncing on Pegula\u2019s second serves and turning the second set into perhaps her most impressive stretch of tennis in the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo complaints,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cI\u2019m just super happy that I was able to pull out such tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aryna Sabalenka pumps her fist during her straight-sets win over Jessica Pegula on Sept. 10, 2026 at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Jason Szenes for New York Post<\/p>\n
The No. 1 seed will face No. 2 Elena Rybakina or No. 4 Coco Gauff on Saturday, needing a victory to become the first player to win three in a row in Flushing Meadows since Serena Williams from 2012-14.<\/p>\n
Rybakina will replace Sabalenka atop the women\u2019s tennis rankings next week, and Sabalenka said this week she would be fine ceding No. 1 after she held it 99 consecutive weeks if it she was able to win another U.S. Open trophy.<\/p>\n
Aryna Sabalenka waves to the crowd after her win over Jessica Pegula in their U.S. Open
semifinal match. Jason Szenes for New York Post<\/p>\n
It will be hard to prevent that if she hits the ball Saturday the way she did against Pegula.<\/p>\n
Sabalenka pounded 29 winners to Pegula\u2019s 12, turning their third straight meeting at the end of the U.S. Open into a rout, after her victory in the 2024 final and 2025 semifinals were tight most of the way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so desperate for the win, I wanted it badly,\u201d Sabalenka said.<\/p>\n
Jessica Pegula hits a backhand during her straight-sets loss to Aryna Sabalenka. Jason Szenes for New York Post<\/p>\n
She has won 19 straight matches at the U.S. Open since losing to Gauff in the 2023 final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aryna Sabalenka moved a win away from her third straight U.S. Open title, beating Jessica Pegula 7-5, 6-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[36472,9166,9,11,10,319,15547,24822],"class_list":["post-343535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-jessica-pegula","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-us-open-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}