10 amazing things Aryna Sabalenka achieved by winning the US Open this year

Aryna Sabalenka’s power game was in full flight in Flushing Meadows this year, as she stormed to her first US Open title—and the third Grand Slam title of her career. She capped her run with a 7-5, 7-5 victory over American Jessica Pegula in the final.

Here are 10 amazing things Sabalenka achieved with her triumph:

She becomes just the fourth active women’s player with three or more career Grand Slam titles. She joins Venus Williams (seven), Iga Swiatek (five) and Naomi Osaka (four) on that list.

She’s just the second woman in the last eight years to win more than one major in a year. Swiatek also won two in 2022—before that you have to go back to Angelique Kerber in 2016.

She’s just the second woman in the last 27 years to win the Australian Open and US Open in the same year. Kerber won both in 2016, too—but before that, you have to go all the way back to Martina Hingis in 1997 to find the last woman to achieve the feat.

She’s now won her last 12 matches in a row, and 24 of the last 25 sets she’s played. Since the start of Cincinnati, the only set she’s lost came against Ekaterina Alexandrova in the third round of the US Open—in a match that started at 12:08am, which was the latest start to a match in US Open history, Sabalenka stormed back from a first set blow-out to prevail, 2-6, 6-1, 6-2, at 1:48am.

She’s now 27-1 at hard-court majors since the start of 2023. Her only loss at one of the last four hard-court majors came to Coco Gauff in the final of last year’s US Open, 2-6, 6-3, 6-2.

She’s also 55-5 in sets at hard-court majors since the start of 2023. She lost one set at the 2023 Australian Open (to Elena Rybakina in the final), three at the 2023 US Open (one to Madison Keys in the semifinals and one to Gauff in the final), and as mentioned above, one at the 2024 US Open (to Alexandrova).

In the last few rounds before the final Sabalenka also achieved several things, including improving to 9-1 in her career in Grand Slam quarterfinals with a 6-1, 6-2 win over Zheng Qinwen. Her only loss in a major quarterfinal came to Mirra Andreeva at Roland Garros this year, where she led by a set and a break—and a break in the third set, too—before falling, 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-4.

And after winning her semifinal against Emma Navarro, she became the second player to qualify for this year’s WTA Finals. The world No. 2 will join world No. 1 Swiatek in Riyadh in November.

With her $3.6-million prize money cheque for winning the title, she surpassed $25 million in career prize money. She actually surged past it, going from $24,761,708 to $28,361,708.

And finally, she narrowed the points gap between herself and Swiatek at the top of the WTA rankings. Going into the US Open, Sabalenka trailed by 2,679 ranking points (10,695 to 8,016). Now, that gap is 2,169 points (10,885 to 8,716). From now until the end of the year last year, Swiatek earned 1,760 more points than her…