‘Let’s see if Elena can beat me’: A playful challenge from the dethroned No. 1

Aryna Sabalenka may have lost her US Open crown and world No. 1 ranking to Elena Rybakina, but the Belarusian still had a joke to share -- challenging her new rival to match her 99-week reign at the top at a stretch.

Sabalenka held the number one position for a total of 107 weeks -- including the stretch of 99 straight weeks that will end on Monday.

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"Ninety-nine? Well, that's amazing. Let's see if Elena can beat me in that," Sabalenka said with a laugh after Rybakina defeated her 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 in Sunday’s final.

“She continue to play like that, then yeah, I’m in trouble,” added the 28-year-old.

The defeat was a bitter one for Sabalenka, ending her bid for a third straight US Open title and denying her the chance to join Serena Williams and Chris Evert as the only women in the professional era to win three consecutive championships at Flushing Meadows.

The weight of that pursuit, she admitted, made the final especially difficult.

“It’s really tough to control your emotions when you lose in the final of the Grand Slam and when you were trying to go for three-peat,” Sabalenka told reporters.

Her frustration boiled over twice as she fired a ball into the crowd and later broke her racket while Rybakina maintained her composure and pulled away in the deciding set.

“I just wanted to let it go, because if I would hold it inside, I wouldn’t be able to say a word,” she said.

Despite the disappointment, Sabalenka vowed to use the lessons from a difficult season as motivation to return stronger.

“As experience shows, I only come back stronger, and all of these lessons this season definitely already made me stronger, but definitely going to motivate me for the next year to do better job,” she said.

The defeat marked her first year without a Grand Slam title since 2022, after she lost the Australian Open final to Rybakina, exited the French Open in the quarterfinals and fell in the fourth round at Wimbledon.

Rybakina’s victory ended Sabalenka’s 20-match winning streak at Flushing Meadows and gave the Kazakh her third Grand Slam title and first US Open crown.

For Sabalenka, though, the next target is clear: come back stronger -- and see if Rybakina can match her at the top.