The crowd wanted Coco Gauff but got Elena Rybakina instead
Elena Rybakina Ends Coco Gauff’s US Open Run in a Charged Arthur Ashe Night Session
Qwenews.com – Arthur Ashe Stadium was ready for another Coco Gauff moment. Instead, Elena Rybakina delivered the performance that sent the American home and carried herself into the US Open final.
Rybakina, newly installed as world No. 1, defeated Gauff 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 in the women’s semifinals. She will now meet Aryna Sabalenka for the championship after Sabalenka beat Jessica Pegula earlier in the evening.
With Pegula eliminated, Gauff stood as the last American woman in the draw. The crowd’s attachment to her, though, reached far beyond home support. Gauff has a special relationship with the New York tournament, where she won her first grand slam title at age 19 in 2023. Her energy, athletic range and visible connection with fans have made her one of the most popular figures in the sport.
“No disrespect to other tournaments, but every US Open is kind of where my mind is,” Gauff said after the match.
That feeling was evident from the opening stages. The stadium repeatedly rang with chants of “Co-co! Co-co!” after Gauff captured the fourth game of the first set, when the match appeared to be tilting firmly in her direction. The umpire, dealing with the same unusually lively atmosphere that has characterized the tournament, responded with a gently cautionary “Thank you…”
Gauff’s early lead gave the audience reason to imagine another breakthrough under the lights. But Rybakina’s calm and increasingly forceful tennis changed the shape of the contest. The Kazakhstani player did not attempt to match the crowd’s emotion; she stayed composed, worked through difficult moments and gradually found her way back into the match.
A composed response from the world No. 1
Playing a night match on Arthur Ashe for the first time, Rybakina faced a stadium that overwhelmingly favored her opponent. She said afterward that she appreciated the setting despite the imbalance in support.
“I enjoyed the atmosphere,” Rybakina said. “Even if the crowd mostly was for Coco.”
The second and third sets became a test of Gauff’s resilience as Rybakina pressed forward. Gauff continued to fight, her exertion audible from the court as she tried to halt the momentum. At times, she succeeded. In the deciding set, she broke Rybakina’s serve to remain in contention, drawing an immediate standing reaction from the crowd.
Yet the energy inside the stadium shifted as the finish approached. Cheers that had started as celebration became urgent encouragement. A supporter’s call of “Come on, Coco!” cut through the arena late in the match, supportive but no longer carefree. Gauff remained in the battle, but Rybakina’s steadiness gave her little room to recover.
The match also illustrated tennis’s strange relationship with time. Points can unfold with startling speed, especially when both players exchange hard, flat strikes from the baseline. Then a single high ball can seem to suspend the entire stadium. A player has time to assess its arc, the audience waits for the inevitable finish, and anticipation grows louder with every fraction of a second.
In another crucial moment, Gauff read the danger in Rybakina’s power and allowed a sharply struck ball to travel beyond the line rather than attempting a desperate reply. But there was no such pause on the final point. Gauff’s last volley drifted long, and the semifinal ended almost instantly.
A vast stadium, and an intensely personal defeat
Arthur Ashe is the largest tennis stadium in the world, a venue built for spectacle. At night, its lighting, noise and scale can make every decisive rally feel heightened. The gasps, music and reaction shots create an atmosphere that invites even casual viewers to take sides quickly.
For the players, though, that enormous setting can also become strikingly intimate. From a distance, the small changes in body language remain visible: shoulders loosening after a lost point, a brief pause before the next serve, or the physical release that follows a rally. Those reactions are not necessarily surrender. Often, they are simply part of resetting for the next point. But when the final point is gone, there is no next reset.
Rybakina recognized what the result meant to many inside the stadium as she addressed the crowd after the match.
“I know you guys wanted Coco to win,” Rybakina said.
She described herself as fortunate after earning a hard-fought place in the final. By then, however, much of the crowd had already departed. The exits filled quickly as fans absorbed the disappointment of seeing their favorite eliminated.
Gauff also left the court swiftly after collecting her belongings. Her defeat ended a run at the tournament where she has already experienced the highest point of her young career. It also underscored the challenge of competing at a grand slam in front of a crowd that expects a storybook result.
Rybakina, meanwhile, moves on with the opportunity to turn an already significant week into a US Open title. She handled both the pressure of a semifinal and the force of the stadium’s allegiance to Gauff, proving that a player does not need the crowd behind her to control the biggest moments.
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