But over 78,000 people attended the US Open<\/a> mixed doubles matches as some entertaining duos were formed and exciting matches were played.<\/p>\n One of the reasons for the change to the US Open\u2019s mixed doubles event was to encourage more singles players to take part, with the aim to entice more fans to watch.<\/p>\n That certainly worked, as spectators watched the likes of former US Open winners Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu team up<\/a>, while Ben Shelton<\/a> joined forces with the doubles number one Taylor Townsend.<\/p>\n Ultimately, it was the defending champions and the specialised doubles team of Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori who won the US Open<\/a>, beating Iga Swiatek<\/a> and Casper Ruud<\/a> in the final.<\/p>\n Several days after the tournament\u2019s conclusion, Martina Navratilova<\/a> sat down with Andy Roddick<\/a> on his \u2018Severed\u2019 podcast to discuss what she thought of the event, and what she would change.<\/p>\n \u201cI love the idea. I love the fact that it brought people to the game and players that would normally not play did play,\u201d Navratilova, the 10-time mixed doubles Grand Slam winner said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut then the players who normally do play didn\u2019t get to play. The women and men that play mixed doubles exclusively did not get a chance to play, or at least most of them.<\/p>\n \u201cBut the tennis was great because the quality of the tennis players was better. But at the end of the day the real doubles specialists ended up winning, so I was happy about that and they got a great pay check.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s a great concept. I don\u2019t like the fact it still counts as a regular title because whenever you shorten the format it levels the playing field and it becomes much more chancy and mixed doubles is already pretty tough to play, with no ad and just a tie break in the final set.\u201d<\/p>\n Another criticism of the US Open mixed doubles event was the number of teams involved. The field was reduced to just 16 teams, and the format was played under Fast 4 rules.<\/p>\n This means teams needed to win just four games to claim a set, and a tiebreaker would decide the set if it reached 4-4. Only the final was played with the standard six games to win a set.<\/p>\n But moving forward, Navratilova would like to see a more teams allowed to enter the competition and more opportunities for kids to watch the matches.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not that I don\u2019t like it. I just think it could be better and maybe make 32 teams,\u201d Navratilova said. \u201cMake it a three or four day event. But then they [the singles players] are not going to want to play.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s like you can\u2019t have it all always, and whenever you can fill those seats that\u2019s great. I would also like to see more free seats for the kids during the tournament, not just the week before.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has become so prohibitively expensive for families to come, so it\u2019s great it\u2019s free and you can put more people in the seats and get more fans.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The revamped US Open mixed doubles event was met with a divisive response when it was announced in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":106951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[17515,99,428,11883],"class_list":{"0":"post-106950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-martina-navratilova","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-tennis","11":"tag-us-open"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/106951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Andrea](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2231230434-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo by Matthew Stockman\/Getty ImagesMartina Navratilova says what she disliked about the revamped US Open mixed doubles event<\/p>\n![\"Martina](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/GettyImages-2149510199-1024x683.jpg\")
Photo By Ricardo Rubio\/Europa Press via Getty ImagesMartina Navratilova wants more teams involved in the next US Open mixed doubles event\u00a0<\/p>\n