WTA Weekly: Rybakina wins first US Open - how many Slams can she win? Can Sabalenka, Swiatek, Gauff bounce back?

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Well, hello there and welcome to WTA Weekly. And well, here we are, our US. Open Wrap Up Show, our Grand Slam, the 2026 Wrap Up Show. So who better to talk out all the big stories with as much and just drink everything in than Vanch. Vanch, how are you doing? If tennis were a beer, I would definitely share it with you.

Vansh (2:49)

Likewise, Nick, I love doing these. I think this was one of the best majors on the WTA side in quite a long time and there's so many different players that come out of it feeling good, some with more questions than others, but I think I'm really happy because the landscape right now is so fantastic and it really was the better of the two events for sure this night.

John Silk (3:11)

Yeah. So, so many good moments and things to talk about and this might be a long one, but we're gonna get into it. And we'll see how it goes.

But let's start with, well, Elena Rybakina wins the 2026 US Open, second grand time of the year, third of her career. And I think what I love about this ranch is that there's so many different angles and storylines you can go with it. No, there's the, as much out of nowhere for a former slam champion and number one contender to be, given the injury. There's the way that she just, the tennis that she played and showed why she was the number one. It was the showing why she was number one anyway, to win the tournament and kind of back it up. There's, and then there's the story of sort of, yeah, the way she's outplayed her rivals, the way she's been in herself, this whole tournament.

And yeah, there's so many angles to go with for Rybakina. Where do you want to start?

Vansh (4:29)

I think it's fair to start with where she was at, you know, a week before the tournament, which is, this was a player who was playing Iga in the Cincinnati quarterfinals, coming off of also a good run in Canada, but playing Iga in the Cincinnati quarterfinals, and it looked like she might have an Achilles injury, which those are really, really hard in tennis to bounce back from. This did not look like an injury to me, which was, oh, let's just play it precautionary and pull out because there's a major coming out. This actually felt like she might not play the tournament.