Taylor Townsend broke Aryna Sabalenka three times in the world No. 1’s first four service games on Sunday afternoon. Sabalenka won 6-4, 6-3. Seven of the opening set’s ten games went against serve on Arthur Ashe Stadium, an hour and 15 minutes of tennis in which the two-time defending champion was accurate on return and unreliable behind her own delivery. Sabalenka reached the US Open quarterfinals for a sixth consecutive year and her 17th major quarterfinal overall.
The first hold. Sabalenka’s first clean service game did not arrive until she led 4-2, and it was a love hold. The match changed shape from there. She could not close the set from 5-2 at the first attempt, but broke Townsend for it a game later with a forehand winner. Townsend, who had walked on in a feathered jacket over a rhinestoned dress, answered at the start of the second set, taking a forehand return early to break for 3-1.
That was the last thing she won. Sabalenka conceded five points across the final five games.
What Townsend could not impose. Townsend’s case against bigger hitters is disruption — hands at the net, changes of pace, low balls that stop an opponent swinging freely. Almost none of it landed. She won eight of 20 points at net. She largely left the slice alone. The only drop shot struck all afternoon came off Sabalenka’s racquet, and the last point of the match was a Townsend serve-and-volley that did not come off, on Sabalenka’s second match point.
Sabalenka finished with 14 winners against 14 unforced errors. She said afterward that the adjustment she made was on her own serve rather than her return — speed, spin, variety, anything that would stop Townsend reading it.
The ranking is still unresolved. Sabalenka has now won 17 straight matches in New York and has not lost at Flushing Meadows since the 2023 final. None of that is enough on its own. To hold on to No. 1 she needs to win the title for a third straight year and needs Elena Rybakina to lose before the semifinals. Rybakina plays Naomi Osaka on Monday.
Next for Sabalenka is Linda Noskova, the Wimbledon champion, who beat Marta Kostyuk 7-5, 5-7, 6-4 later on Sunday. Sabalenka leads that head-to-head 2-0.
Townsend was unbothered. Ranked No. 96 and playing Sabalenka for the first time, Townsend has now lost to the defending champion in three consecutive majors — to Coco Gauff at Roland Garros, to Iga Swiatek at Wimbledon, and here. She arrived in the interview room in a good mood.
“I felt like I had everything that I needed to compete with her,” she said. She and her coach went through the numbers afterward and concluded that ten or twelve points turned the other way would have produced a different result. Two of Townsend’s three career top-10 wins have come at this tournament, over Simona Halep in 2019 and Mirra Andreeva last year.
She is not finished in New York. She remains in the doubles draw, and a tournament referee told her coach she was the last player still competing in both.
