{"id":828525,"date":"2026-07-28T06:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T06:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828525\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T06:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T06:34:17","slug":"tennis-news-2026-aryna-sabalenka-novak-djokovic-us-open-mixed-doubles-pay-dispute-boycott-fears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/828525\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis News 2026: Aryna Sabalenka, Novak Djokovic US Open mixed doubles, pay dispute, boycott fears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Novak Djokovic<\/a> and Aryna Sabalenka<\/a> will team up to compete at this year\u2019s US Open<\/a> mixed doubles event, despite fears that key players could boycott the event amid pay disputes.<\/p>\n

Tournament organisers overhauled the mixed doubles last year, boosting prize money to $1.43m and pushing for top singles players to team up and compete.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka together at Wimbledon in 2025. \u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

The pairing of Djokovic and Sabalenka \u2014 two of the most decorated tennis players in the world \u2014 provides the US Open with a headline act for this year\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

Iga \u015awi\u0105tek<\/a> and Casper Ruud<\/a>, who made it to the final of the event in 2025, are expected to play again, as are the Japanese duo of Naomi Osaka<\/a> and Kei Nishikori.<\/p>\n

Australian Open<\/a> champion Elena Rybakina<\/a> is expected to team up with American Taylor Fritz, while Frances Tiafoe will pair with Leylah Fernandez, who was Nick Kyrgios\u2019<\/a> partner for the Australian Open mixed doubles this year.<\/p>\n

Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev, Diana Shnaider and Daniil Medvedev<\/a> and Alex Eala and Felix Auger-Aliassime have also entered the event.<\/p>\n

The change in 2025 came with heavy criticism from doubles specialists who felt they were being shut out of the grand slam event.<\/p>\n

The number of top stars who have signed up for the mixed doubles also came despite recent fears of a boycott surrounding prize money and revenue sharing.<\/p>\n

Sabalenka has been among the top players who have been particularly vocal about the dispute<\/a>, which has raged on since March 2025.<\/p>\n

A letter was sent from the players to the four grand slam events, demanding greater prize money tied to tournament revenues, increased investment in player welfare and the creation of a player committee tied to the four slams.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s French Open<\/a> saw some players limit the length of their media availabilities, as part of sending a message about the ongoing pay concerns.<\/p>\n

Wimbledon, however, carried on unaffected, despite the total prize money increases falling millions short of what players demanded.<\/p>\n

Leading American tennis reporter Jon Wertheim stated that the US Open would likely not bow to the players\u2019 demands and believed the mixed doubles could be targeted for boycotting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe US Open, they are not going to agree readily with any sort of revenue sharing model,\u201d Wertheim told American tennis legend Andy Roddick on the Served with Andy Roddick podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe question always with these things is how much leverage do the players have? And there have been rumblings about mixed doubles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Wimbledon champion Jannik Sinner has not signed up for the mixed doubles at the US Open.\u00a0AP Photo\/Kin Cheung<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I was told is that there are players who are happy to play, who are sort of on a wait list who haven\u2019t been tapped yet, but if, Jannik Sinner<\/a> is a name that\u2019s been thrown around, Aryna Sabalenka has been very vocal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf those players choose not to play in the mixed event as a form of protest, they\u2019ll still be OK to fill the field. Obviously, you\u2019d rather have the two current world number ones than not, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fatal to this mixed doubles event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Long-time Australian Open boss Craig Tiley has now taken the reins at the US Tennis Association<\/a>, and will likely have the final say in pay debates.<\/p>\n

In May, Sabalenka said a boycott or a strike felt inevitable.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think at some point we will boycott it, yeah,\u201d she told reporters at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like that\u2019s going to be the only way to fight for our rights.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not an easy life for players who are lower in the rankings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, the latter returning from injury, have yet to put their hand up for the mixed doubles event.<\/p>\n

Serena Williams\u2019 comeback tour has also been halted by a knee injury<\/a> suffered in her comeback loss to Aussie Maya Joint, ending hopes of seeing her and Venus Williams team up once more.<\/p>\n

The BBC has reported that the US Open has dangled as much as $715,000 in front of top players in order to get them to sign up for the mixed doubles this year.<\/p>\n

Other grand slams are yet to follow suit with an all-star approach to the event.<\/p>\n

The US Open gets underway at the end of August. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka will team up to compete at this year\u2019s US Open mixed doubles event,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":828526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,85,747],"class_list":["post-828525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828525","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=828525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}