{"id":65601,"date":"2026-09-04T17:23:25","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T17:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/65601\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T17:23:25","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T17:23:25","slug":"sabalenka-gets-through-tough-test-at-the-us-open-with-williams-sisters-in-doubles-action-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/65601\/","title":{"rendered":"Sabalenka gets through tough test at the US Open, with Williams sisters in doubles action at night"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka fought through a tough third-round test at the U.S. Open<\/a>, keeping alive her hopes of a third straight title by beating Kamilla Rakhimova 6-3, 6-4 on Friday.<\/p>\n

The No. 1 seed was pushed in a second set that lasted 54 minutes \u2014 a minute longer than her entire previous match.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecond she played incredible tennis,\u201d Sabalenka said. \u201cShe really pushed me so hard in the second set and I love when they bring their best tennis because they really push me to improve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trying to become the first player to win three straight U.S. Open titles since Serena Williams from 2012-14, Sabalenka will face No. 15 seed Diana Shnaider or Taylor Townsend in the round of 16.<\/p>\n

Williams will be playing at the U.S. Open for the first time since 2022 on Friday night, teaming with sister Venus to play their first-round doubles match<\/a> against Hao-Ching Chan and Maya Joint, who beat Serena in singles play<\/a> at Wimbledon this summer.<\/p>\n

Defending men’s champion Carlos Alcaraz also was in action Friday.<\/p>\n

Sorana Cirstea, the 36-year-old from Romania who is contemplating retirement after this season, will have at least one more Grand Slam match after the No. 16 seed beat No. 19 Jasmine Paolini 6-3, 6-3.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aryna Sabalenka fought through a tough third-round test at the U.S. Open, keeping alive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":65602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1839,50,28,1646,463,25449],"class_list":["post-65601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-s","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-us-open","tag-us-open-day-six-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}