Aryna Sabalenka needed every ounce of her competitive nerve to get past Taylor Townsend 6-4, 6-3 and reach the US Open quarter-finals for the sixth year running, a feat only Serena Williams has managed at Flushing Meadows in recent memory.
A contest that refused to settle down
Nothing about this fourth-round clash followed a straight line. The opening set alone produced five successive breaks of serve, largely because both women were reading each other's deliveries with unusual precision rather than because either was serving poorly. Sabalenka needed a second opportunity to serve out that first set before Townsend struck back at the start of the second, racing into a 3-1 lead that looked, for a moment, like the start of a genuine upset. Instead of wobbling, the top seed answered immediately with a love break to level things up, and from that point on she barely let her opponent breathe. Across the last five games of the match, Sabalenka lost only five points in total, closing out the contest in 75 minutes.
A streak that keeps growing
The result stretched Sabalenka's unbeaten run at this tournament to 18 matches in a row, a streak that now spans three full years and includes back-to-back title runs in 2024 and 2025. At 28, she has now won 38 main-draw singles matches at the US Open since her debut in 2018, more than any other woman across that stretch. She has also become the first woman since Williams' run in 2016 to reach six consecutive US Open quarter-finals, and this latest win leaves her three victories away from matching a feat only Williams has pulled off before her, winning three US Open titles in a row.
Townsend's feathers and her firepower
Townsend, a doubles specialist known for sharp instincts around the net, walked onto the court in a long, black-feathered outfit and backed up the entrance with genuine substance, crowding the net, returning superbly and covering the court well enough to keep the outcome in doubt deep into the second set. Much of the crowd was openly behind the American, adding another layer of difficulty to an afternoon that never let Sabalenka fully relax. Afterwards, Sabalenka admitted the challenge forced her to narrow her focus down to the smallest unit of the match possible, saying, "I was just trying to stay focused on myself, not only point by point but ball by ball." She separately praised Townsend's net play, her return game and her movement as genuinely impressive, and thanked the spectators who cheered for her at moments even though she had expected the crowd to side with her opponent throughout the contest.
Why this run matters for the rest of her season
The stakes behind this scoreline go well beyond a single match. Sabalenka knows that lifting the trophy again is her only realistic route to retaining the world number one ranking, a fact that appeared to sharpen her response the moment Townsend edged ahead early in the second set. The win also keeps alive her hopes of avoiding a rare blank season: after exiting in the fourth round at Wimbledon, this remains her clearest chance to prevent this year from becoming her first season without a major title since 2022. On the hard courts where she has enjoyed her greatest major success, Sabalenka has reached the semi-finals every single year since 2020, and this latest quarter-final spot extends that run of reliability into another edition of the tournament.
Chasing history at Flushing Meadows
Williams' shadow hangs over almost every landmark Sabalenka is now approaching. The American great was the last woman to string together six straight US Open quarter-final appearances before Sabalenka matched it this year, and she remains the only player in the tournament's recent history to have won three consecutive titles here. Every match Sabalenka now plays in this draw doubles as a step towards, or away from, standing alongside one of the sport's most decorated champions on both of those counts.
