Restorative mixed Tours: Russians will compete for the US Open mixed doubles title

The stellar mixed doubles of the US Open has once again gathered the top tennis players in the world, and three Russians will compete for the title in mixed doubles. Mirra Andreeva will play in a pair with Andrey Rublev, Diana Schneider — with Kasper Ruud, and among the main favorites of the tournament are the duets of Arina Sobolenko and Novak Djokovic, as well as Carlos Alcaraz and Serena Williams.

A good idea

For many years, mixed doubles was more like something that existed on the principle of "to be." If top singles players still appear periodically in regular doubles tennis (at least in women's tennis), then only those of them who really like the doubles game, like, say, Elena Ostapenko, come to the mixed. By the way, the Latvian won the Wimbledon mixed doubles this summer with Marcelo Arevalo and was supposed to play with him in New York, but refused to participate, and now the Salvadoran will compete in qualifying with Kristina Mladenovic.

Mixed doubles doesn't even have its own ranking — the players' scores and seeding numbers have always been based on the women's and men's doubles rankings. The reason is clear — the mixed was held only at Grand Slam tournaments and nowhere else. Applications for it were already submitted during the singles competition, the matches were in the second week of the majors and did not attract much attention. Indeed, few people would want to be distracted by mixed doubles during the matches of the decisive stages of the men's and women's singles tournaments.

The organizers of the US Open went on a radical experiment last summer. The mixed was postponed a week before the start of the main draw, during which singles qualifiers and various entertainment events such as veterans matches are held in New York. The grid was halved, making four rounds instead of five, the ranking for both entering the tournament and seeding was single, not double, half of the participants were invited by wild card. As a result, the only duo from the clean greenhouses turned out to be the current champions of the tournament, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who successfully defended the title in the new format and enriched themselves by $ 1 million — before that, it was impossible to even dream of winning prizes in the mixed. At the same time, there were complaints against the organizers that the tournament had become almost inaccessible to doubles specialists, but specifically Sarah and Andrea were clearly not upset in the end.

There are still mixed doubles competitions in Indian Wells, but this year the format was not serious at all: a championship tie-break was immediately played, which determined the winner. This season, Elena Rybakina and Taylor Fritz became the leaders there. They were also supposed to play together at the US Open, but due to Rybakina's injury in Cincinnati, she withdrew, and Fritz will perform with Jessica Pegula. In New York, the format of the relatively common mixed version is also reduced, but not significantly — at all stages, except for the finals, sets are played up to four games instead of six (at 4-4, a tie-break is held). The decisive point at 40:40 and the championship tiebreak instead of the deciding game have long been introduced in the mixed at all the majors except Wimbledon.

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Legendary couples

In 2026, the US Open star mix was initially under threat due to players' dissatisfaction with the prize money at the Slams (in general, and not specifically in this category). But in the end, the situation was settled, and by the beginning of August, applications had come from so many couples that it was possible to arrange a five-lap tournament, as in previous years. However, in the end, some of the duets fell off for one reason or another, including such couples as Anna Kalinskaya with Lorenzo Musetti, Maria Sakkari with Karen Khachanov and Venus Williams with Alexander Bublik. By the way, the number of participants compared to last year was expanded anyway by introducing qualifications. Now, instead of 16, 14 duets immediately fall into the base, and eight more pairs play two rounds of qualifying competitions.

There are still eight special invitations to the main draw, and it's not surprising that they were distributed mainly to the star singles who paired up. The only full—fledged exception here, as a year ago, is the Errani duo./Vavassory, and the half—exception is Taylor Townsend, who specializes in doubles tennis, but plays the US Open with Alexander Zverev, and not one of the specialized doubles.

But the qualifications are full of paired specialists. There are Katerina Sinyakova with Henry Patten, Gabriela Dabrowski with Harry Heliovara, Alexandra Krunic with Mate Pavic, and the already mentioned Kristina Mladenovic with Marcelo Arevalo. One of the two qualifying winners will face Karolina Mukhova and Jakub Menshik, while others will face Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz.

The last duo looks to be one of the most intriguing in the tournament. It's hardly worth expecting Carlos and Serena to fight for victory, but just watching two superstars of different generations play together is already interesting — and at the same time, try to assess the form of the Spaniard, who has just missed more than four months due to a wrist injury. And in terms of stardom, only the pair of Arina Sobolenko and Novak Djokovic can compete with this pair. By the way, if Serena and Carlos are not seeded (which is logical due to the fact that Williams Jr. does not have a singles ranking), then the Belarusian and the Serb received the first number of seeding. In the first round, they will play Leila Fernandez and Francis Tiafoe, and in the second (also known as the quarterfinals) they can face the family duo of Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils, who are holding their farewell season. Initially, another married couple, Alex de Minor and Katie Boulter, were announced for the US Open, but in the end they withdrew.

As for the Russian players, they can play against each other in the quarterfinals on Tuesday, August 25. However, Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev need to defeat the reigning two-time champions of the tournament, Errani and Vavassory, and Diana Schneider and Kasper Ruud will face the second-seeded Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz at the start. The Norwegian himself reached the final here last year with Iga Sventek. Initially, he was going to play with her this time, but the Polish woman withdrew at the last moment. Diana needed a new partner after Daniil Medvedev gave preference to the parallel ATP-250 tournament in Winston-Salem, asking the organizers for a wild card. Last season, Mirra, who was playing with Daniil at the time, and Andrey (his partner was Karolina Mukhova) reached the quarterfinals. Let's see if any of the Russians will make it further this time.