Iga Swiatek, the defending US Open champion, was shocked out of the tournament in the early hours of Monday in New York when Jelena Ostapenko defeated her 3-6, 6-3, 6-1 in the fourth round. The Latvian increased her career dominance over Swiatek to 4-0 with her first victory over the Pole in more than two years. Swiatek’s reign as the WTA world No. 1 came to an end with the loss, but the victory advanced Ostapenko into her first quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows, where she will take on title favourite Coco Gauff.
Swiatek maintained the number one slot for 75 consecutive weeks after taking over the standings last year, just days after Ash Barty announced his retirement from the sport.
This is the third-longest first-time streak on the WTA Tour, after the legendary Steffi Graf (186 weeks) and Martina Hingis (80 weeks), and the 12th-longest streak overall, trailing only the great Chris Evert. In addition, the 22-year-old spent the 10th-most overall weeks at the top place, trailing Lindsay Davenport.
After losing in the semifinals in Toronto and Cincinnati back-to-back times, Swiatek’s hegemony was never completely secure. Due to the removal of last year’s ranking points, she therefore had only an 11-point advantage over Sabalenka when she began her campaign there last week. To replicate Swiatek’s performance at the US Open, all the Belarusian needed to do was outperform.