Aryna Sabalenka is making the US Open look almost routine, which is a dangerous thing to say about a two-time defending champion but entirely fair after this. Taylor Townsend had moments, and there was a brief wobble when Sabalenka slipped to 3-1 down in the second set, but the match ended exactly where these matches so often end: with Sabalenka in control and the scoreboard telling the real story, 6-4, 6-3.
That result took her into the quarter-finals for a sixth straight year at Flushing Meadows, a milestone that underlines just how relentless her record in New York has become. Since her US Open main-draw debut in 2018, no woman has collected more singles wins at the event, and this latest victory was her 18th consecutive win there. That is not a hot streak. That is ownership.
The key moment was the response
Sabalenka was honest enough to say she was focused on staying with herself, ball by ball as much as point by point, and that is exactly what the match demanded once Townsend found a brief opening. The second set could have become messy. Instead, Sabalenka shut it down. She said turning that set around was the key moment, and she is right. Champions do not simply avoid trouble; they end it.
There is a reason her status in this tournament feels different now. Back-to-back US Open triumphs in 2024 and 2025 have turned expectation into pressure, but Sabalenka keeps answering it with the same hard truth: she is still the player everyone else has to beat, not the other way around. And with this run, she remains three wins away from matching Serena Williams, the last woman before her to reach six consecutive singles quarter-finals at Flushing Meadows in 2016 and the last player to win three US Open titles in a row.
That is the level Sabalenka is brushing up against now. Linda Noskova has already booked a quarter-final place after beating Marta Kostyuk 7-5, 5-7, 6-4, while Jessica Pegula also moved through with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Sorana Cirstea. But Sabalenka remains the headline act. She is winning, she is surviving the awkward patches, and she is doing it with the cold authority of a player who expects the tournament to bend around her.
For now, it has. And until someone proves otherwise, Sports Today at the US Open is still very much Sabalenka's story.
