Serbian tennis legend Novak Djokovic and women\u2019s No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka top the list of pairings entered for the U.S. Open mixed doubles.<\/p>\n
However, both men\u2019s world No. 1\u00a0Jannik Sinner and second-ranked Carlos Alcaraz have not entered the competition, which was heavily revamped last year.<\/p>\n
Reforms featured a shorter scoring format in the earlier rounds and a new scheduling slot \u2014 played over two days \u2014 before the singles draws in an attempt to encourage the top players to enter.<\/p>\n
Italian doubles specialists Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who criticized the changes, will defend the title they won last year, which came with a $1 million winners\u2019 check.<\/p>\n
Djokovic, 39, and 28-year-old Sabalenka are certain to feature among the initial six pairings selected according to world rankings when the deadline for entries closes on Aug.\u00a017.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time you can bring women and men together on the same team, you showcase tennis at its best,\u201d said U.S. Tennis Association CEO Craig Tiley.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is exactly what the mixed doubles championship does.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are proud to again bring the world\u2019s top players together in a format that will provide exciting entertainment for our fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wimbledon champion Sinner \u2014 who did not enter last year\u2019s mixed doubles \u2014 is \u201cprioritizing\u201d his health ahead of the final Grand Slam of the year and is also bypassing the Canadian Open, which runs from August 2-13.<\/p>\n
Alcaraz, who did play last year with Emma Raducanu, is recovering from a wrist injury that ruled him out of both the French Open and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
Eight teams will be determined via wild card and announced on a date to follow. Two teams will earn a main draw spot by advancing through the eight-team qualifying draw played on August 24.<\/p>\n
The two-day tournament gets under way on August 25, five days before the men\u2019s and women\u2019s singles competitions begin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Serbian tennis legend Novak Djokovic and women\u2019s No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka top the list of pairings entered for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":831130,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6005,49,48,619,290317,2083,82,593,2084],"class_list":["post-831129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-jannick-sinner","tag-novak-djokovic","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831129\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/831130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}