Sabalenka survives seven breaks of serve against Townsend to reach a sixth straight US Open quarterfinal
Aryna Sabalenka (No. 1) beat Taylor Townsend 6-4, 6-3 in the fourth round of the US Open 2026 on Sunday to reach her sixth consecutive quarterfinal at the tournament and her 17th at a Grand Slam. She next plays the winner of No. 11 seed Marta Kostyuk and No. 6 seed Linda Noskova.
Aryna Sabalenka, US Open 2026 | © Zuma / PsNewz
World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka came through an opening set in which neither she nor Taylor Townsend could hold serve, then recovered an early break in the second, to beat the American 6-4, 6-3 on Sunday and reach the US Open quarterfinals for a sixth consecutive year.
The Belarusian, the No. 1 seed and two-time defending champion, has not lost a match at Flushing Meadows since the 2023 final. She plays the winner of No. 11 seed Marta Kostyuk of Ukraine and No. 6 seed Linda Noskova, the Czech who won Wimbledon this year and beat Kostyuk in the semifinals there.
The win was her 44th of 2026 and her 38th at the US Open, more than any player has won at this event since her main draw debut in 2018. In her last 24 matches in New York she is 23-1. It carried her into a 17th Grand Slam quarterfinal and left her three wins from becoming the first woman to take three consecutive US Open titles since Serena Williams in 2012-2014.
It also keeps a narrower race alive: she must win the tournament to have any chance of holding the No. 1 ranking she has occupied since October 21, 2024, a run that will reach 99 consecutive weeks by the end of this fortnight.
Serving collapse
The first set was a serving collapse on both sides. Seven of its ten games went against serve. Sabalenka broke Townsend in an opening game that reached four deuces, was broken straight back, and the exchange repeated itself until she finally held to 15 for 4-2. She held twice in five service games and Townsend once in five, and the explanation sat in a single line of the statistics: Sabalenka won one point of eight behind her second serve, Townsend one of nine. Neither player could defend a ball she had to hit twice.
Townsend, a left-hander ranked No. 96 in singles and No. 2 in doubles, broke early in the second set and had the World No. 1 chasing again. Sabalenka recovered it and won the set 6-3.
“I was just trying to stay focused on myself and play not only point by point but like ball by ball,” she said on court afterwards. “I’m happy that I was able to turn around that second set.”
Townsend was playing for the first Grand Slam quarterfinal of her career in her 35th main draw, twelve years after losing to Serena Williams here as a wild card on her debut. She had beaten the No. 20 seed Maja Chwalinska in the first round and the No. 15 seed Diana Shnaider in the third, having arrived in New York without a Grand Slam win all season after first-round exits in Melbourne, Paris and London.
She is now 0-3 against players ranked World No. 1 at the time of the meeting, and the two before this, Williams in 2014 and Simona Halep at Roland-Garros in 2018, both went on to win the tournament.
Sabalenka : “It was a big test”
Sabalenka’s first words were about her opponent. “Oh my god, what an incredible player she is,” she said. “Approaching the net, what a great returner, moving well, very brave. You can see how focused she was, and it was really challenging playing her.”
Her second were about the crowd, which had spent the afternoon watching one of its own. “I gotta say thank you so much for being so respectful to me,” she said. “Obviously you guys gonna be on her side, but I didn’t expect you being so respectful to me.”
“It was a big test,” Sabalenka said. She was broken three times in the first set alone and still won in straight sets.
US Open 2026, Women’s Fourth Round
A. Sabalenka [1] vs T. Townsend: 6-4, 6-3
M. Kostyuk [11] vs L. Noskova [6] – Sunday, Louis Armstrong Stadium
J. Pegula [3] vs S. Cirstea [16] – Sunday, Louis Armstrong Stadium, not before 3:00 PM
A. Kalinskaya [21] vs E. Navarro [26] – Sunday, Arthur Ashe Stadium, 7:00 PM session
M. Andreeva [5] vs A. Potapova [24] – scheduled Monday
I. Jovic [14] vs C. Gauff [4] – scheduled Monday
I. Swiatek [8] vs Q. Zheng (Q) – scheduled Monday
N. Osaka [13] vs E. Rybakina [2] – scheduled Monday
