While Aryna Sabalenka established herself at the top of her sport over the past two seasons, she was her own biggest opponent in many of the biggest Grand Slam matches. Even when she entered full of confidence and her game was in full bloom, her head so often got in the way. Recovering from so many painful breakdowns required immeasurable resilience.

Nowhere were these difficulties more evident than in New York, a city that perfectly suits her captivating game and her extraordinary personality, but where the positive aspects of her two semi-finals and her final over the past three years have been cancelled out by brutal defeats.

Ultimately, Sabalenka held her nerve until the bitter end in two intense, stormy sets that pushed her to her mental limits before wrapping up her first title in New York with a commanding 7-5, 7-5 victory over a combative Jessica Pegula.

With her third Grand Slam title, second-seeded Sabalenka has now won more major titles than any other Belarusian tennis player, breaking a tie with Victoria Azarenka. She is only the fifth woman in the Open Era to win both Grand Slam hard-court titles in the same season, having also won the Australian Open this year.

Grand Slams were once Sabalenka’s greatest weakness and she was already established as a top 10 player before she even reached her first quarterfinal. She has now won three of the last four majors on hard court, with her only loss coming in the final of last year’s US Open to Coco Gauff.

This clash was a battle between the two best players of the summer. Pegula had won the Canadian Open in Toronto before Sabalenka defeated Pegula in the final in Cincinnati. In their final match, Sabalenka simply overwhelmed Pegula with her power.

In a breathtaking battle of the highest order, the opening set initially followed a similar pattern. No. 6 seed Pegula used her impeccable timing and hand skills to fend off Sabalenka’s pace as best she could while maintaining excellent depth and consistency, but the No. 2’s superior striking power decided the majority of points. Sabalenka also showed her improved versatility by consistently finishing points at the net.

After recovering from an early break, Sabalenka served to win the set at 5-3. Pegula responded with a brilliant return as the crowd became increasingly involved and their cheers grew louder under the roof of Arthur Ashe Stadium. Sabalenka blinked and made many forehand errors as she lost serve. At 5-5, she had a break point after a double fault and lost her composure, slamming her racquet repeatedly on the ground, but recovered immediately. She saved the break point with a serve traveling at 84 mph (135 km/h), then hit an incredible backhand down the line. After holding serve, Sabalenka needed five set points on Pegula’s serve before finally winning the set.

Just when it seemed as if the 26-year-old would win the match, Pegula sharpened her concentration. After trailing 0-3 and 30-40, the American forced herself to strike first in the rallies, brilliantly deflecting the ball from both wings and gradually catching up with an increasingly error-prone Sabalenka. Pegula won five games in a row and now led 5-3.

A year ago, Sabalenka had built a one-set lead over Gauff in the final before collapsing spectacularly in the next two sets, sending a deafening US crowd driving the Belarusian mad. After her semifinal victory over American Emma Navarro on Thursday, Sabalenka admitted she had flashbacks to last year after she failed to serve out the match and was dragged into a tiebreak.

For a moment, history seemed to repeat itself. But Sabalenka took a deep breath, drew on years of effort to control her emotions, composed herself and marched through the final four games of the match to finally claim the US Open title she had so patiently waited for.