Mixed doubles gets mixed reaction

NEW YORK — The new US Open mixed doubles tournament drew plenty of criticism for everything from its format to its field.

With mostly singles players, some who rarely play doubles at all, it felt less like a Grand Slam championship than an exhibition — which is what one player referred to it as on Tuesday.

The fast-paced event, with shorter matches and a smaller field, is already down to its final four. Whoever wins the trophy Wednesday night — and a $1 million prize — won't apologize for the way they got it.

"This is the official mixed doubles. If we get to the final tomorrow, I'm sure everyone is going to be pretty determined to try to win this thing," Casper Ruud said.

Ruud and Iga Swiatek, the No 3 seeds, easily won their two matches and will face the top-seeded duo of Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper in one semifinal. Defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, the only traditional mixed doubles team in the 16-team field, meet Danielle Collins and Christian Harrison — who weren't even the draw until Jannik Sinner and Katerina Siniakova withdrew Tuesday morning because of Sinner's illness — in the other.

Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu were quickly eliminated. So were the No 2 seeds, Taylor Fritz and Elena Rybakina. Novak Djokovic and teammate Olga Danilovic also were one-and-done.

Those types of Grand Slam singles champions are exactly the sort of players the US Tennis Association was seeking when it revamped the tournament and cut it down from 32 teams.

Now played over two days, mixed doubles starts well before the singles tournaments begin on Sunday, with organizers believing singles stars would be more interested in playing if it didn't interfere with their rest and recovery during that event.

Traditional doubles specialists like Errani and Vavassori were among the biggest critics of the changes. Even Karolina Muchova referred to the event as an exhibition during the postmatch interview after her team's opening victory over Venus Williams and Reilly Opelka.

The prize of $1 million to the winning team would be a huge boost to doubles players, but most of them never had a chance of competing for it this year. Errani and Vavassori said they were playing for those teams, but also acknowledged the potential benefit of the new event.

"I have to say that, as with everything, there are always positives and negatives, but the positives are, for sure, that the stadium was packed in the second match," Vavassori said. "It's a great thing for doubles to be seen by more people. I have to give them credit. I also said it before, playing this format is great for doubles and mixed doubles to develop in the future."

Errani and Vavassori didn't even know originally if they would get a chance to defend their title in the new format, which gives eight teams automatic spots based on the players' combined singles rankings. The other spots are wildcards awarded by the USTA.

The Italians were given one, and they showed off their skills in a first-round victory over Fritz and Rybakina that took just 42 minutes. The shortened format allows the matches to speed by, knowing winning teams would have to play twice on the first day, and potentially twice again Wednesday night.

When Errani and Vavassori won the title last year in Flushing Meadows, it was late in the second week of the tournament in a stadium with plenty of empty seats.

The new schedule has mixed doubles now being played when, usually, the only competitions taking place are the qualifying events for the singles tournaments. Admission onto the grounds during what the USTA calls "fan week" is free, so Louis Armstrong Stadium was packed for the opening match, a far bigger crowd than mixed doubles generally draws.

Some fans may not have even realized that the match was headed to a second set after Errani and Vavassori took the opener in just 19 minutes. In traditional tennis scoring, they would have had to win six games instead of four to win the set.

"I think some people could easily view it as they had to do less work to win the match. Stamina's definitely less of a factor now that sets are only to four in the first two rounds, but I think it's good," spectator and New York native Jay Maresco said after watching the Italians' second-round victory. "It keeps the pace going. It's definitely better for the US Open to keep the matches faster, and people coming in and out of Armstrong."

The sets to four games with a 10-point match tiebreaker instead of a third set were used through the semifinals. Only the final will resemble a regular match, with sets to six games, tiebreakers at 6-all and a 10-point tiebreak for a third set.

Agencies via Xinhua