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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Round of 16
Elena Rybakina vs Naomi Osaka — 6-1 6-4
 Elena Rybakina✓ | 6 | 6 |
 Naomi Osaka | 1 | 4 |
Final · Monday, September 7, 2026 · Round of 16
Result
Four weeks ago in Toronto these two went three sets; this took 66 minutes, and 22 of them were the first set. Rybakina broke Osaka in her second and third service games — the first ending on the third of three double faults in the game, the second on a backhand forced error from 0-40 — and won the last five games of the set. Osaka's only break point of the match came between those two breaks, at 1-3, and Rybakina saved it with an ace at 118 mph, her fastest serve of the day. The second set went with serve to 3-3 before two more Osaka double faults opened the decisive break; all five of her doubles landed in games she lost her serve, and she hit none in her six other service games. Osaka saved two match points at 3-5 before Rybakina held to love and finished on an ace, her seventh. Rybakina won 87 per cent of her first-serve points and hit twenty-nine winners to nine. It is her first US Open quarter-final at the eighth attempt, which completes the set at all four majors, and she has not dropped a set here. A semi-final would make her world No. 1.
Elena RybakinaRows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The Round of 16 is the fourth round, and the point at which a Grand Slam stops being a draw and becomes a tournament you can hold in your head: eight matches, played across Sunday and Monday, and the eight who come through are the quarter-finalists. Everyone still here has won three matches on these courts, so the seedings have stopped being a guide and the form of the fortnight has taken over.
Round of 32
What we know now
Court: Louis Armstrong Stadium
Match length: 1:06
Watch: ESPN · ESPN2 · ABC · ESPN app
What I said beforehand
The preview, frozen before the first serve. Clearly dated, never rewritten — that's the deal that makes the pick worth anything.
Two of the biggest hitters in the sport, on the surface that rewards it, with the world No. 1 ranking sitting behind one of them: Rybakina needs the semi-finals to be sure of taking it from Sabalenka even if Sabalenka wins the title. She is playing like it. She beat Yuliia Starodubtseva 7-6(6) 6-3 in 1h52 with twelve aces to one, saved a set point in the tiebreak with one of them, and did it against the player who had knocked her out of Roland Garros in May. Hard-court Elo has her 169 points clear, about 72-28. Osaka's fortnight has been the opposite kind of tennis. She needed three sets to beat Siniakova, three more to beat Mertens, and the Mertens match was as close as a 7-5 third set gets: broken at 2-2, sitting through a changeover with a towel over her head crying, a medical timeout for a left-leg problem she has carried since the grass season, a match point saved against her at 5-4, and a break in the twelfth game on her fourth match point. She converted four of sixteen break points and made 41 unforced errors. "I'm literally shocked that I won this match," she said, and then apologised to the children watching for how she had behaved. Set against that: she is a two-time champion here, she reached the semi-final last year, she beat Gauff in this round in 2025, and in July she beat the world No. 1 at Wimbledon. Rybakina won their only meeting, in Toronto four weeks ago, from 4-2 down in the second. I take Rybakina at close to the rating, because the one thing Osaka cannot afford is a leg that will not let her move, and Rybakina's serve is the shot that finds out.
The case for Elena Rybakina
70% to winRybakina is the second seed, the Australian Open champion, and two wins from the world No. 1 ranking. She beat Sabalenka in the Melbourne final in January, 6-4 4-6 6-4, sealing it with an ace, having beaten Swiatek in the quarter-finals; she has a Stuttgart title, an Indian Wells final and a Toronto final since. Here she has not been troubled, and the Starodubtseva win was both an avenging of her Roland Garros exit and a demonstration: twelve aces, a set point saved in the tiebreak with one, and 82% of her first-serve points won. She beat Osaka in Toronto in August from 4-2 down in the second set, firing eight of her fifteen aces in the decider and saving all four break points she faced.
The case for Naomi Osaka
30% to winOsaka has won this tournament twice and reached the semi-final last year, beating Gauff in this exact round on the way. In July she beat the world No. 1 Sabalenka 6-2 7-6(2) in the Wimbledon fourth round, her first win over a world No. 1 in nearly seven years, and reached a first quarter-final there. She has now played ten matches against Elise Mertens, more than against anyone else, and found a way through a bad one — nine aces, 79% of her first-serve points, and a break of serve to win it rather than the comfort of serving for it. She is the only two-time champion left in the draw, and this is the round and the stadium where she has always been at her most dangerous.
Both cases written 2026-09-06, before the first ball — frozen into the record exactly as written, whatever the result. The percentages are mine — opinions with a percent sign on. They add to 100 because tennis has no draw to hide the rounding in.
My locked pick: Elena Rybakina to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Hard-court Elo says 72-28, Rybakina won their only meeting four weeks ago, and Osaka is carrying a left-leg problem she has had since the grass season into a match against the biggest serve left in the draw.”
Locked 2026-09-06 12:40 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Elena RybakinaNaomi OsakaPlayer vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-04.
Career head-to-head: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-06.
Storylines
- Rybakina reaches the world No. 1 ranking by reaching the semi-finals, whatever Sabalenka does from here. She has never been past the fourth round at this tournament.
- Osaka reached the semi-final here last year, losing to Amanda Anisimova 6-7(4) 7-6(3) 6-3 — and beat Coco Gauff 6-3 6-2 in the fourth round on the way.
- Their only previous meeting was the Toronto quarter-final on 11 August: Rybakina won 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4 in 2h33 from 4-2 down in the second, hitting eight of her fifteen aces in the deciding set and saving all four break points she faced.
- Osaka took a medical timeout against Mertens for a left-leg problem: "I wouldn't say it's a huge injury. I would say it's this ongoing problem that I've had since grass season."
- She also apologised on court for her own conduct during the match: "I was very negative on myself, so I'm really sorry about my behavior. For the little kids watching, I'm really sorry."
- Rybakina beat Starodubtseva 7-6(6) 6-3 having lost to her in the Roland Garros second round in May — the biggest win of the Ukrainian's career at the time.
- Four former champions are in the last 16: Sabalenka (2024, 2025), Osaka (2018, 2020), Swiatek (2022) and Gauff (2023). Between them they hold every title here since 2018 bar two.
Head to head
One meeting: the Toronto quarter-final on 11 August 2026, Rybakina 4-6 7-6(5) 6-4 in 2h33 on hard. Osaka broke in the opening game and led 4-2 in the second before Rybakina turned it; Rybakina won 111 points to 107 and hit fifteen aces to three.
Source: Tennis Abstract career match logs (tour-level) · as of 2026-09-06.
Court & schedule: Louis Armstrong Stadium, Monday 7 September. The US Open posts each day's order of play the evening before; this one is on the board. (Official US Open order of play, as of 2026-09-07)
Weather: Sunday — the men's final, and the last match of the fortnight — is 78°F with showers and thunderstorms 95% likely, the wettest day of the two weeks and the one day that cannot be pushed back. Ashe closes its roof and plays on. It clears overnight: 20% Sunday night, 20% Monday, then dry and sunny from Tuesday. (National Weather Service New York forecast, as of 2026-09-13)
Venue: USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Flushing Meadows, New York — hard.