FILE – Sara Errani, of Italy, and Andrea Vavassori, of Italy, maintain up the championship trophy after defeating Taylor Townsend, of the USA, and Donald Younger, of the USA, within the combined doubles remaining of the US Open tennis championships, Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Picture/Julia Nikhinson, File)
Grand Slam singles champions reminiscent of Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Iga Swiatek and Madison Keys shall be enjoying for a bit of more money — OK, a variety of more money, by any commonplace: $1 million to the profitable duo — and making an attempt to get their arms on a trophy within the US Open’s overhauled combined doubles match.
The most effective of the perfect at doubles, in the meantime, should not so enthusiastic about what one in every of final 12 months’s combined champions in New York, Sara Errani, labeled “unhappy” and “nonsense” in an interview with The Related Press. She and Andrea Vavassori, who’ll be defending their title, are the one true doubles group competing Tuesday and Wednesday at Flushing Meadows.
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A 12 months in the past, solely two extremely ranked singles gamers participated.
“It will be like if, on the Olympics, they didn’t let the precise excessive jumpers take part, and as a substitute had basketball gamers compete within the excessive soar as a result of it’s extra ‘fascinating.’ If you wish to try this, I suppose you’ll be able to, however you’ll be able to’t award them medals,” Errani stated. “You possibly can’t have a Grand Slam doubles (trophy) and never let doubles gamers participate. … You’re excluding them from their sport. It’s dishonest.”
Who’s enjoying within the 2025 US Open combined doubles match?
The highest seeds, primarily based on their mixed singles rankings, are Jessica Pegula, the 2024 US Open runner-up, and Jack Draper, a semifinalist a 12 months in the past. He’s onto his third companion after Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen and former No. 2 Paula Badosa withdrew with accidents. Their preliminary opponents could be the most-anticipated pairing: five-time Slam champ Alcaraz and 2021 US Open winner Emma Raducanu.
Different groups embody Sinner and 10-time main doubles champion Katerina Siniakova, Swiatek and Casper Ruud, Keys and Frances Tiafoe, Venus Williams and Reilly Opelka, Taylor Fritz and Elena Rybakina, Naomi Osaka and Gael Monfils, Novak Djokovic and Olga Danilovic, and Daniil Medvedev and Mirra Andreeva.
“It’s going to depend as an actual Grand Slam. The prize cash is nice,” stated Fritz, the runner-up to Sinner in singles at Flushing Meadows a 12 months in the past. “We’re 100% there to attempt to win it.”
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Stated Tiafoe: “Seeing the prize cash, everybody was like, ‘We’re going, it doesn’t matter what.’”
What’s completely different about combined doubles on the US Open?
What’s completely different? Put plainly: every thing. That features the highest prize of $1 million a 12 months after Errani and Vavassori break up $200,000.
Even the foundations are altering, with units performed to 4 video games as a substitute of six till Wednesday’s remaining, no-Advert scoring, and match tiebreakers as a substitute of a 3rd set. There are 16 groups as a substitute of 32. The matches have been shifted from the latter phases of the U.S. Open, overlapping with singles, to earlier than subsequent Sunday’s begin of the principle singles brackets. Half the sphere is predicated on singles rankings, and the opposite half was merely chosen by the U.S. Tennis Affiliation.
That’s how the singles stars obtained concerned. It’s additionally why some say the entire thing is a bit foolish.
Gaby Dabrowski, a Canadian who owns two main championships in combined doubles and earned the ladies’s doubles trophy on the 2023 U.S. Open, tried to get into the sphere with Felix Auger-Aliassime, however they weren’t among the many USTA’s wild-card choices.
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“Do I believe it’s a real combined doubles championship? No. Do I believe it might assist the game of doubles ultimately? It might,” Dabrowski stated, “however not when you can’t have any doubles gamers play in it.”
Why are some gamers upset concerning the US Open combined doubles adjustments?
Like Errani or Dabrowski, doubles gamers aren’t thrilled about being excluded and shedding out on a payday.
Additionally they assume it’s typically demeaning to doubles specialists — even when the USTA thinks this might help enhance the recognition of doubles.
“Once you get the most important names enjoying doubles, it does carry a bit extra consideration to it,” stated Joe Salisbury, a British participant who’s received two Grand Slam titles in combined doubles and 4 in males’s doubles, “however I’m undecided it’s good for the doubles occasion, as a result of it’s not likely a correct occasion. It’s only a two-day exhibition.”
Event director Stacey Allaster objects to that form of characterization.
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“Let’s be completely crystal clear: It is a Grand Slam championship. It isn’t an exhibition,” Allaster stated. “We’re sympathetic to the doubles specialists who don’t like this modification. … (However) we all know that when followers see prime gamers competing … that is going to encourage extra followers to not solely attend however to play tennis, and it’s in the end going to develop the game.”
