Throughout the 2026 season, Elena Rybakina and Aryna Sabalenka’s tennis fates have been intertwined at the top of the sport.
They have contested three finals, two of them at Grand Slams. They have jostled for the world No. 1 ranking, which Rybakina seized a fortnight ago in New York before defeating Sabalenka in the U.S. Open final, just as she had defeated her to win the Australian Open in January.
Saturday into Sunday at the China Open in Beijing, they produced tennis symmetry once more — with surprising defeats. World No. 118 Alina Charaeva came from a set down to defeat Rybakina 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the last women’s match of the day Saturday, before rising Czech talent Nikola Bartůňková ousted Sabalenka 6-4, 6-3 early on Sunday.
As with most tennis symmetries, the similarities largely end there.
Charaeva, a 24-year-old who represents Armenia but was born in Russia, had never beaten a top-50 player at WTA Tour level before this week. In defeating Rybakina, she became the lowest-ranked player on record to earn a comeback win over the world No. 1, while Rybakina became just the second player to lose her first match on the women’s tour as world No. 1, after Naomi Osaka in 2019.
“I was just trying to stay really hard mentally and keep believing that at some point I could turn it around again to my side,” Charaeva said during her on-court interview.
The match was uncomfortable for Rybakina, who said in a pre-tournament news conference that she was managing allergies and a foot injury that she played through to win the U.S. Open, from the start. The 6-3 first set in her favor featured five breaks of serve, with Charaeva able to break Rybakina’s serve twice.
The pressure on her service games continued into the second and third sets, but Rybakina stopped making inroads on Charaeva’s service games after taking a 2-1 lead in the second set. Charaeva broke back immediately for 2-2, and from there Rybakina did not have another break point.
The world No. 1 played 94 points on serve in the match, compared to 79 for Charaeva.
Sabalenka, by contrast, had already been served notice of Bartůňková’s talent. When they met at the Berlin Tennis Open in June, Bartůňková produced a whirlwind attacking performance to lead the then-world No. 1 6-2, 4-0, before trying to rush to the finish line and unraveling in the process to lose in three sets.
In Beijing, Bartůňková did what so few players are able to do against Sabalenka: She broke serve in the opening game and then held the lead all the way to the end of the set, staving off five break points (and a 0-40 deficit) when serving up 3-2. In the second set, the 20-year-old did not face a break point at all, breaking Sabalenka’s serve twice.
“I focused on myself, to be calm. Aryna is great. She’s a legend. She’s a Grand Slam Champion. I’m really happy I won the match,” Bartůňková said on court.
There was one echo from Sabalenka’s U.S. Open defeat to Rybakina in the match with Bartůňková. The Czech made just 56 percent of her first serves, but won 82 percent of the points behind them. In the opening set of the U.S. Open final, Rybakina made just nine first serves out of 30, but did not even face a break point. Against Bartůňková, Sabalenka created those five break points in the opening set, but they all came in the same game and she could not convert.
Charaeva will next face Sonay Kartal of Great Britain, while Bartůňková meets Austria’s Sinja Kraus. For Sabalenka and Rybakina, attention turns to the Wuhan Open, and their next jostle at the top of the sport.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Tennis, Women's Tennis
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