Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz were knocked out of the US Open mixed doubles at the quarter-final stage, beaten by fourth seeds Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli. The high-profile pairing had captured attention after Williams returned to competitive tennis in June at 44 and Alcaraz made his comeback from a wrist injury that sidelined him since April.
Williams and Alcaraz opened their mixed-doubles campaign with a victory over Britain’s Lloyd Glasspool and Erin Routliffe, winning 5-3, 4-1 in a match that drew a big crowd to Arthur Ashe Stadium. Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, said afterwards, “I never expected to be back on this court. I never thought this would happen.” The 22-year-old Alcaraz — five years younger than the time Williams won the 1998 mixed title at Flushing Meadows — also secured his first match back on tour in that win.
Facing Bencic and Cobolli in the quarters, Williams and Alcaraz started well but faded as the day wore on, losing 5-4, 4-1. Bencic and Cobolli had praised their opponents before the match, dubbing Williams “the queen of tennis” and Alcaraz “the king of now.” With the mixed-doubles run over, attention turns to whether Williams might appear in the women’s doubles alongside sister Venus; she has already ruled out another singles comeback at Wimbledon.
In another shock result, top seeds Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka were eliminated in their opening match by Britain’s Henry Patten and Katerina Siniakova. Djokovic and Sabalenka took the opening set, but Patten and Siniakova fought back to win the second and then dominated the match tiebreak to seal the upset. Siniakova finished the match with an ace on match point, and Patten reflected on the momentum swings in the short-format contest: “It wasn’t looking very good for a while, in this format we play one bad game and all of a sudden the first set’s gone. We knew the same could happen in the second, and we played an amazing tiebreak. Kat acing Novak on match point was great.”
The mixed doubles at Flushing Meadows has been staged in the week before the singles main draw since a format change last year intended to attract more top singles players. Organisers reduced the field and gave the event its own calendar slot; the revamp proved a commercial success in its debut, drawing sell-out crowds and many big-name singles entrants, though some established doubles players criticised the move for marginalising regular pairings.
Defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who won last year’s mixed title, suffered a first-round exit this year. They were beaten by Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev in a close contest decided by a match tiebreak. Andreeva and Rublev then progressed to the semi-finals with a win over Diana Shnaider and Casper Ruud.
The semi-final line-up now includes Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev, who face Czech duo Karolína Muchova and Jakub Mensik, while Bencic and Cobolli meet the husband-and-wife team of Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina after Monfils and Svitolina edged Patten and Siniakova in the last eight. The two semi-finals are scheduled to be followed by the final, which will be played under a traditional best-of-sets format to six games.