{"id":78849,"date":"2025-08-19T02:17:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:17:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78849\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T02:17:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:17:03","slug":"us-open-mixed-doubles-event-slammed-sara-errani-hits-out-at-nonsense-shake-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78849\/","title":{"rendered":"US Open mixed doubles event slammed; Sara Errani hits out at ‘nonsense’ shake-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Grand slam singles champions such as Jannik Sinner<\/a>, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys will be playing for a little extra money \u2014 OK, a lot of extra money, by any standard: $US1 million ($1.54m) to the winning duo \u2014 and trying to get their hands on a trophy in the US Open’s overhauled mixed doubles tournament.<\/p>\n

The best of the best at doubles, meanwhile, are not so excited about what one of last year’s mixed champions in New York, Sara Errani, labelled \u201csad\u201d and “nonsense\u201d in an interview with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

She and Andrea Vavassori, who’ll be defending their title, are the only true doubles team competing at the event this week at Flushing Meadows.<\/p>\n

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A year ago, only two highly ranked singles players participated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would be like if, at the Olympics, they didn\u2019t let the actual high jumpers participate, and instead had basketball players compete in the high jump because it\u2019s more \u2018interesting’,” Errani said.<\/p>\n

“If you want to do that, I guess you can, but you can\u2019t award them medals. You can\u2019t have a grand slam doubles (trophy) and not let doubles players take part. … You\u2019re excluding them from their sport. It’s dishonest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch all the action from the 2025 US Open live & on-demand on Stan Sport<\/a>. Coverage of select matches free-to-air on Nine and streaming on 9Now<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sara Errani of Italy.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The top seeds, based on their combined singles rankings, are Jessica Pegula, the 2024 US Open runner-up, and Jack Draper, a semi-finalist a year ago. He’s onto his third partner after Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen and former No.2 Paula Badosa withdrew with injuries.<\/p>\n

Their initial opponents might be the most-anticipated pairing: five-time grand slam champ Alcaraz and 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu.<\/p>\n

Other teams include Sinner and 10-time major doubles champion Katerina Siniakova, Swiatek and Casper Ruud, Keys and Frances Tiafoe, Venus Williams and Reilly Opelka, Taylor Fritz and Elena Rybakina, Naomi Osaka and Gael Monfils, Novak Djokovic and Olga Danilovic, and Daniil Medvedev and Mirra Andreeva.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to count as a real grand slam. The prize money is great,\u201d said Fritz, the runner-up to Sinner in singles at Flushing Meadows a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are 100 per cent there to try to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Said Tiafoe: \u201cSeeing the prize money, everyone was like, \u2018We\u2019re going, no matter what.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sara Errani (R) and Andrea Vavassori (L) during their mixed doubles campaign last year in the US.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

What is different about mixed doubles at the US Open?<\/p>\n

What’s different? Put plainly: everything. That includes the top prize of $US1 million a year after Errani and Vavassori split $US200,000.<\/p>\n

Even the rules are changing, with sets played to four games instead of six until Wednesday’s (local time) final, no-ad scoring, and match tiebreakers instead of a third set.<\/p>\n

There are 16 teams instead of 32. The matches were shifted from the latter stages of the US Open, overlapping with singles, to before the start of the main singles brackets. Half the field is based on singles rankings, and the other half was simply chosen by the US Tennis Association.<\/p>\n

That’s how the singles stars got involved. It’s also why some say the whole thing is a bit silly.<\/p>\n

Gaby Dabrowski, a Canadian who owns two major championships in mixed doubles and earned the women\u2019s doubles trophy at the 2023 US Open, tried to get into the field with Felix Auger-Aliassime, but they were not among the USTA\u2019s wildcard selections.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo I think it\u2019s a true mixed doubles championship? No. Do I think it could help the sport of doubles in the end? It could,\u201d Dabrowski said, \u201cbut not if you can\u2019t have any doubles players play in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gabriela Dabrowski of Canada during the trophy ceremony after winning the doubles final in Cincinnati.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Like Errani or Dabrowski, doubles players aren’t thrilled about being excluded and losing out on a pay-day.<\/p>\n

They also think it’s generally demeaning to doubles specialists \u2014 even if the USTA thinks this can help boost the popularity of doubles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get the biggest names playing doubles, it does bring a bit more attention to it,\u201d said Joe Salisbury, a British player who\u2019s won two grand slam titles in mixed doubles and four in men\u2019s doubles, \u201cbut I\u2019m not sure it\u2019s good for the doubles event, because it\u2019s not really a proper event. It\u2019s just a two-day exhibition.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tournament director Stacey Allaster objects to that sort of characterisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s be absolutely crystal clear: This is a grand slam championship. It is not an exhibition,\u201d Allaster said. \u201cWe\u2019re sympathetic to the doubles specialists who don\u2019t like this change. … (But) we know that when fans see top players competing … this is going to inspire more fans to not only attend but to play tennis, and it\u2019s ultimately going to grow the sport.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Grand slam singles champions such as Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys will be playing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78850,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-78849","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78849"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78849\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}