{"id":83679,"date":"2025-08-20T12:34:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/83679\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T12:34:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T12:34:17","slug":"u-s-open-shows-off-one-of-tennis-most-important-but-neglected-selling-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/83679\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Open shows off one of tennis\u2019 most important but neglected selling points"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether it was Emma Raducanu<\/a>\u2019s open-mouthed, head-in-hands reaction to a Carlos Alcaraz<\/a> forehand winner around the net, or Novak Djokovic\u2019s jig following a forehand passing shot of his own, there were numerous moments that had the U.S. Open mixed doubles<\/a> crowd on their feet on Tuesday in New York.<\/p>\n

The fairness and sporting merit of the event have come into question since its inception, but the first day of play was defined by something more fundamental to tennis as a sport: the inarguable potency of seeing elite female and male athletes competing against one another on the same court.<\/p>\n

Whether it was Iga \u015awi\u0105tek getting the better of Grand Slam semifinalists Frances Tiafoe and Lorenzo Musetti from the baseline (as she has done previously with players such as Taylor Fritz and Alejandro Davidovich Fokina), or Jack Draper showing no mercy against Raducanu and then Mirra Andreeva, these are easily digestible storylines with wide appeal.<\/p>\n

Men versus women is, for better or worse, an endless fascination, and no sport does it like tennis. But no sport has fumbled a USP of its magnitude for so long, given that mixed doubles \u2014 previously a high-profile discipline at the Grand Slams \u2014 has become marginalized to the point of irrelevance.<\/p>\n

As singles has become more taxing, the appetite to play doubles on the side has dwindled.<\/p>\n

There have been brief moments.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Serena Williams and Roger Federer faced off against each other in the Hopman Cup and then took what was dubbed \u201cthe greatest selfie of all time\u201d. Later that year, Williams and Andy Murray joined forces at Wimbledon and became the feel-good story of the tournament.<\/p>\n

Those of us privileged to be on Centre Court for their second-round win against Fabrice Martin and Raquel Atawo will never forget the gasps and then the explosion of noise when Williams returned a 138mph Martin serve for a clean winner.<\/p>\n

A woman destroying a serve that was 7mph quicker than the women\u2019s record was utterly compelling. Williams was so far and away the best player on the court that night that Murray, a two-time Wimbledon men\u2019s singles winner, spent much of it just watching and admiring as she routinely dismantled Martin\u2019s serve and most powerful strokes.<\/p>\n

A couple of years earlier, John McEnroe had said of Williams that \u201cif she played the men\u2019s circuit she\u2019d be, like, (ranked) 700 in the world,\u201d Williams\u2019 masterclass felt like a particularly powerful rejoinder \u2014 channeling the spirit of Billie Jean King winning the \u201cBattle of the Sexes\u201d against former world No. 1 Bobby Riggs in 1973. In a sport where so much inequality remains, stories like these will always have additional resonance.<\/p>\n

At last year\u2019s Paris Olympics, Daniil Medvedev, at the time the men\u2019s world No. 5, struggled to deal with Sara Errani\u2019s snail-paced serve, which became an internet meme. On Tuesday, current world No. 4 and last year\u2019s U.S. Open finalist Fritz at times had similar difficulties.<\/p>\n

Another great appeal is the way the unisex format allows players to show more of their personalities. Putting players on court in an unfamiliar format, with unfamiliar opponents, has a way of showing different sides of them as people. On Tuesday, Djokovic performed a dance that ended with him grabbing his foot after spearing a forehand up the line past Medvedev, while Draper was forced to defend himself after accusations he was taking the event too seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hearing that a lot \u2014 it\u2019s a bit of an exhibition, a bit of fun, (so) why am I so locked in?\u201d he said in a news conference after he and Jessica Pegula had beaten Medvedev and Andreeva to reach tonight\u2019s semifinals. \u201cI\u2019m enjoying being locked in. I don\u2019t know why it\u2019s a crime to be locked in.\u201d<\/p>\n

The United States Tennis Association (USTA) had, in part, revamped the mixed doubles to tap into these dynamics with added star power. The \u201cMixed Madness\u201d exhibition ahead of last year\u2019s U.S. Open was a big hit \u2014 it was 2022 Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini who got schooled by \u015awi\u0105tek on that occasion, so much so that her partner Sebastian Korda jokingly left the court for a moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt truly is something unique in sport where you have the best athletes, male and female, competing on the same field of play at the same time against one another,\u201d Lew Sherr, the then-USTA chief executive, said in a video interview. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t exist in other professional sports, and we think it\u2019s something that is truly unique to tennis, to Grand Slam tennis, and represents an amazing opportunity to bring the sport or encourage more fans to follow the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

This version of that opportunity has its flaws. It locks out another enticing dynamic \u2014 singles star vs doubles specialist \u2014 with the exception of Errani\u2019s partnership with Andrea Vavassori, and the vibe of the new event remains closer to exhibition than Grand Slam.<\/p>\n

But it has at least re-raised the question of how tennis can better take advantage of one of its most powerful USPs.<\/p>\n

Who isn\u2019t looking forward to seeing Draper and \u015awi\u0105tek unapologetically trying to smash each other off the court in a few hours\u2019 time?<\/p>\n

(Photo: Frey \/ TPN via Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether it was Emma Raducanu\u2019s open-mouthed, head-in-hands reaction to a Carlos Alcaraz forehand winner around the net, or…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,569,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-83679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83679","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=83679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}