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Elena Rybakina added the Australian Open title to her resume on Jan. 31, 2026, holding her nerve in the Melbourne heat to beat world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka in a three-set women’s singles final.
The Kazakhstani star came through 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 to secure her first Australian Open trophy and her second Grand Slam title, four years after winning Wimbledon in 2022.
Rybakina opened the championship match by taking the first set 6-4, putting herself in control before Sabalenka, a two-time Australian Open winner, hit back to level the contest with a 6-4 second set.
The decider followed the same tight pattern, with Rybakina edging the final set 6-4 to see the match out and close the door on a comeback.
With the win, Rybakina moved up to third in the WTA world rankings, reinforcing her status at the top end of the women’s game after backing up her Wimbledon breakthrough with another major title on hard courts.
Away from the final, Türkiye’s Zeynep Sonmez brought her Australian Open campaign to an end in the third round after a three-set loss to Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva at Melbourne’s KIA Arena.
Sonmez, who went into the match ranked 112 in the world, pushed Putintseva (ranked 94) all the way before going down 6-3, 6-7, 6-3.
Her exit still wrapped up a landmark tournament for Turkish tennis, as she became the first Turkish player to reach the third round of the season’s first Grand Slam.
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