Elena Rybakina has reached the pinnacle of women’s tennis. How did she do it?

As she won her quarter-final match against Qinwen Zheng at the recently concluded US Open, Elena Rybakina became the first professional player from Kazakhstan to reach the top of the WTA singles rankings, upstaging Aryna Sabalenka, who held the ranking for 99 weeks.

This is an amazing achievement indeed, with the 27-year-old becoming the 30th women’s singles world No. 1 since the rankings were introduced in 1975, joining a list featuring some illustrious greats: Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Monica Seles, Serena Williams, and Maria Sharapova, to name a few.

So how did Rybakina travel the long road to the No. 1 spot?

Rybakina rose through the ranks in the junior ITF circuit before joining the WTA Tour in 2019. She won her first WTA tournament at the Bucharest Open (WTA 250) and broke into the top 100 rankings.

Her claim to fame arrived at the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, where she went on to win her first Grand Slam title, defeating Ons Jabeur in the final in three sets. Rybakina reached another Slam final, at the 2023 Australian Open, but there she lost to Aryna Sabalenka in three sets. Rybakina won two WTA 1000 titles after that: the Indian Wells Open and the Italian Open, both in 2023.

Most of 2025 turned out to be underwhelming for Rybakina, as she failed to reach a single Grand Slam quarter-final and had only won one WTA 500 tournament, in Strasbourg, until the Ningbo Open. She was ranked in the top ten but wasn’t assured of a spot in the WTA Finals.

So Rybakina got to work, winning the WTA 500 Ningbo Open and playing in the Pan-Pacific Open to secure the last remaining spot in the year-ending finals, also withdrawing from the Tokyo Open after reaching the semi-finals.

Although Rybakina qualified late for the WTA Finals, she went on a winning run, defeating four top-ten-ranked players en route to the prestigious title, for which she beat then world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets in the final.

For a year that had started so poorly, Rybakina ended 2025 ranked world No. 5. She then faced familiar foe Sabalenka in the final of the 2026 Australian Open and went on to lift her second Grand Slam title, breaking into the top three rankings. She reached another final, this time at Indian Wells, but lost to Sabalenka in three sets. Rybakina then reached the semi-finals of the Miami Open but lost to Sabalenka again, with the Belarusian securing the Sunshine double.

Rybakina won her second title at the Stuttgart Open, defeating Karolina Muchova in the final. The Kazakh then went through underwhelming clay- and grass-court swings. She couldn’t even get through to the fourth rounds of both Roland-Garros and Wimbledon, which highlighted a significant loss of form.

However, Rybakina found her form again in the North American hard-court swing, reaching the final of the Canadian Open and the quarter-finals of the Cincinnati Masters before retiring due to an Achilles injury. There were doubts about her attendance at the US Open, but she confirmed her participation mere days before the tournament began.

When the 2025 season drew to a close, the gap had looked massive: Sabalenka had 9,870 points to Rybakina’s 4,350. Nine months later, the gap was down to a mere 414 points going into the US Open, and for the first time Rybakina had a clear shot at the summit. She had to reach the US Open semi-finals in order to secure the world No. 1 ranking.

And she did that in some style. Rybakina won all her matches until the quarter-finals in straight sets. Under huge pressure from the media and the outside world, she secured the ranking by beating Qinwen Zheng after going a set down. She went on to beat home favourite Coco Gauff in the semi-finals and then defeated Sabalenka, the defending champion, to secure her third Grand Slam title, deservingly taking the No. 1 spot for herself. 

Rybakina has been one of the most intriguing characters in women’s tennis. While players like Sabalenka and Gauff are known for their effervescence, Rybakina is shy and introverted in comparison, and one rarely knows much about her thoughts. Whether she is winning or losing, she hardly shows any emotions on the court. But when she’s playing, she remains an aggressive player with the best serve on the WTA Tour and a powerful baseline game.

There have never been any doubts about Rybakina’s quality and potential, and whatever questions have arisen, they’ve been regarding her mentality and fitness. She seems to have sorted out both those issues this year, showing amazing consistency and a fighting spirit that has been lacking in previous seasons. It really makes for a scary proposition for her rivals, as Rybakina is starting to play her best tennis, and this could just be the start of her reign.