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Sports · US Open 2026 · Women's Singles · Quarter-finals
Aryna Sabalenka vs Linda Noskova — 7-6(1) 3-6 7-6(7)
| Aryna Sabalenka✓ | 7 | 3 | 7 |
 Linda Noskova | 61 | 6 | 67 |
Final · Tuesday, September 8, 2026 · Quarter-finals
Result
Sabalenka served for the first set at 5-3, was broken, and won the tiebreak 7-1 anyway from 6-0 up — the afternoon in miniature, because the reigning Wimbledon champion out-served her 18 aces to 12, out-hit her 46 winners to 42, and still lost. Noskova broke for 4-2 in the second on a Sabalenka double fault and served it out. When Sabalenka double-faulted twice to 0-40 at 2-2 in the third and crouched down to howl at herself, Noskova broke for 3-2 and went 4-2 clear; Sabalenka broke straight back to love. Noskova then twice served to stay in the match and held both times, closing the second with an ace as the roof shut overhead at 4-5 for shade — unannounced, which she was still unhappy about afterwards. She led the deciding tiebreak 2-0 and lost it 10-7: a forehand winner took Sabalenka to 5-3, a 109 mph ace to 7-5, and a 97 mph second-serve ace out wide ended it on the first match point. A sixth consecutive US Open semi-final, and the first set Noskova has taken off her in three meetings.
Rows the source hadn’t published are left off rather than guessed.
At this Stage
The quarter-finals are the last eight, played across Tuesday and Wednesday. Everyone still here has won four matches on these courts, which is enough that seedings have stopped explaining anything and the form of the fortnight explains most of it. Four of the eight are gone within two days; the other four play for a place in the final.
Round of 16
Quarter-finals
What we know now
Court: Arthur Ashe Stadium
Match length: 2:22
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.
This is the reigning Wimbledon champion against the two-time defending champion here, and the ratings do not think it is close. Tennis Abstract's hard-court Elo had Sabalenka at 2164.7 and Noskova at 1930.0 on 31 August — a gap of 235 points, which is about 79-21 — and Sabalenka leads the head-to-head 2-0, both on hard courts, most recently 6-3 6-4 in the Indian Wells semi-final in March. Sabalenka has not dropped a set here and has spent 5h05 on court; Noskova has spent 7h40, has beaten two seeds to Sabalenka's none, and needed six match points and a single-point margin — 105 to 104 — to get past Marta Kostyuk. The case for shading it toward Noskova is real and it is mostly about the last three months rather than the last three days: she won Wimbledon in July on her sixth championship point, she has won eleven consecutive Grand Slam matches, she reached a career-high No. 6 in August, and Sabalenka has not won a major all year and is trying to avoid her first majorless season since 2022. The case against is a number. Over the last fifty-two weeks Noskova has double-faulted on 17.3% of her second serves — better than one in six — against Sabalenka's 9.8%, and Sabalenka is the best returner in the draw. Every service game becomes a negotiation, and this is the opponent least likely to let one go. I take Sabalenka, shaded down from the ratings because the ratings have not watched either of them play this week.
The case for Aryna Sabalenka
72% to winSabalenka has not lost at Flushing Meadows since the 2023 final and is 23-1 in her last twenty-four matches here. This is her sixth consecutive US Open quarter-final — the first woman to do that since Serena Williams in 2016 — her seventeenth Grand Slam quarter-final, and she is 5-0 in US Open quarter-finals. She has dropped no sets in four matches and spent under an hour on court in one of them. She is No. 1 on all four of Tennis Abstract's Elo measures, overall and on every surface. She has beaten Noskova twice without losing a set that mattered, and after the second of those said the serve was the key and that if she gave Noskova small openings she would take them — a read she repeated almost word for word on Sunday.
The case for Linda Noskova
28% to winNoskova is the Wimbledon champion, has won eleven Grand Slam matches in a row, and has taken out two seeds in this draw. She beat Kostyuk in the Wimbledon semi-final in July and beat her again on Sunday, and she beat Jessica Pegula in the Berlin final in June. Her serve is the biggest weapon on this side of the draw and she is second on tour in aces for the season behind Elena Rybakina. She has been in a match like this before and won it: her first meeting with Sabalenka was an Adelaide final in January 2023, when she was an eighteen-year-old qualifier ranked 102nd who had beaten the world No. 2 to get there, and she took Sabalenka to a second-set tiebreak. She is a peer now rather than a qualifier, and the two-hours-thirty-five she has spent on court more than Sabalenka has all been against people who could play.
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: Aryna Sabalenka to advance ✓ RIGHT
“Hard-court Elo says 79-21 and Sabalenka has won both meetings without dropping a set that mattered, but the snapshot predates the tournament, Noskova is the reigning Wimbledon champion on an eleven-match Slam winning streak, and Sabalenka has not won a major all year.”
Locked 2026-09-06 23:55 UTC — rendered verbatim from the pick ledger; never a fresher, hedged version
Tale of the tape
Player vitals: US Open official player feed (usopen.org) and Tennis Abstract career match logs · as of 2026-09-05.
Career head-to-head: WTA and tournament match records; BNP Paribas Open recap · as of 2026-09-06.
Storylines
- Sabalenka is three wins from a third consecutive US Open title. The last woman to win three in a row here was Serena Williams in 2012, 2013 and 2014; the all-time record is four, shared by Chris Evert (1975-78), Helen Jacobs (1932-35) and Molla Mallory (1915-18). Only Evert and Serena have managed three straight in the Open era.
- The world No. 1 ranking is live and Sabalenka's grip on it is narrow: she has to win the title AND have Elena Rybakina lose before the semi-finals to keep it, because the 2,000 points from last year's title come off. Rybakina takes No. 1 by reaching the semi-finals, whatever anyone else does. Sabalenka has held it for 99 consecutive weeks.
- Noskova has won eleven consecutive Grand Slam matches, going back to the start of Wimbledon, where she beat Karolína Muchová 6-2 5-7 6-3 in the final on her sixth championship point. On Sunday she needed six match points again, having lost the second set again — the same shape, twelve weeks apart.
- This is Noskova's third Grand Slam quarter-final and her first at the US Open. It would have been a first for Kostyuk too, which is part of why Sunday's match ran to 2h27 and a one-point margin.
- Sabalenka has not won a major in 2026 — runner-up in Melbourne, quarter-finals in Paris, a fourth-round exit at Wimbledon to Naomi Osaka. She has not won a title of any kind since Miami in March, and is trying to avoid her first season without a major since 2022.
- Their two previous meetings bracket Noskova's whole career: the 2023 Adelaide final, when she was an eighteen-year-old qualifier ranked 102nd, and the 2026 Indian Wells semi-final in March, when she was ranked 14th. She is No. 6 now.
Head to head
Two meetings, both to Sabalenka on outdoor hard courts and both in straight sets. She won the 2023 Adelaide final 6-3 7-6(4) against an eighteen-year-old qualifier, and the 2026 Indian Wells semi-final 6-3 6-4 in 1h28. Tuesday is their first meeting at a Grand Slam.
Source: WTA and tournament match records; BNP Paribas Open recap · as of 2026-09-06.
Court & schedule: Arthur Ashe Stadium, Tuesday 8 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.