Ultimately, the two-day doubles party – where courtside DJs pumped up the crowd and encouraged a raucous atmosphere – will be considered a success.<\/p>\n
Britain’s Jack Draper, who is ranked fifth in the ATP singles rankings but has limited doubles experience, said he thought it was a “great” event.<\/p>\n
“If I wasn’t playing the mixed here, I’d be training. I prefer playing on a big court in front of people. It gets your eye in quicker,” he said.<\/p>\n
After the opening day’s action, Draper made a Freudian slip which initially proved quite telling.<\/p>\n
Draper was playfully scolded by his partner Jessica Pegula for describing the new-look event as an “exhibition” – a word used disparagingly by its detractors.<\/p>\n
But, following their semi-final exit, Draper was keen to point out the event did not feel like a ‘hit and giggle’ after all.<\/p>\n
“[On Tuesday] there were times where it felt a little bit more that way from our opponents,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Whereas tonight we were in the changing rooms, you’re seeing Iga and Casper, they’re fully dialled in. It was intense.”<\/p>\n
The fans on the ground in New York also demonstrated their appetite for something different.<\/p>\n
On the opening day, the 25,000-seater Arthur Ashe Stadium was about two-thirds full when A-List pairing Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz walked out to a pop star-style reception.<\/p>\n
For Wednesday’s semi-finals and final, where face-value tickets ranged from $50 (\u00a337) to $262 (\u00a3195), it was just short of a full house with only a slither of empty seats at the very back.<\/p>\n
Ticket-holders Hilary Hamm and Maria Segovia – ardent tennis fans who have previously travelled from New York to Wimbledon and the Australian Open – admitted they have rarely watched mixed doubles in the past.<\/p>\n
“Moving it from finals weekend and making it a standalone event caught our attention,” said 32-year-old Maria. “If it is going to increase crowd engagement, then I’d definitely to see more events like this.”<\/p>\n
Hilary, also 32, added: “I think it’s been amazing. Watching the women leading the male partners has been particularly inspiring and shows tennis needs a strong mixed gender competition featuring the stars.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ultimately, the two-day doubles party – where courtside DJs pumped up the crowd and encouraged a raucous atmosphere…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[99,428],"class_list":{"0":"post-99286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99286","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=99286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}