Carlos Alcaraz and Serena Williams were eliminated at the quarter-final stage of the Alcaraz Williams US Open mixed doubles event on Tuesday, beaten by Italy’s Flavio Cobolli and Switzerland’s Belinda Bencic 5-4 (7-4) 4-1.
Their exit came after a first-round win in front of about 15,000 fans inside Arthur Ashe Stadium, where the pair defeated Great Britain’s Lloyd Glasspool and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe 5-3 4-1. All four doubles-specialist pairings were knocked out by teams containing singles players on the day.
Williams and Alcaraz on the Alcaraz Williams US Open mixed doubles court
Alcaraz was returning to competitive tennis for the first time since April after a wrist injury. Williams was playing in New York for the first time since she ‘evolved away’ from tennis in 2022.
The reception was emphatic. Both players were met with huge cheers and roared on throughout their opening win, with the pair trading smiles and encouragement between points. Interviewed during a change of ends, Alcaraz said: ‘I’m playing next to the one and only Serena Williams, so what else can I do? Just enjoy and try to do the things she told me to do.’
Alcaraz, a seven-time major winner, acknowledged the nerves. ‘I think everyone could see I was really nervous, I double-faulted on the first point,’ he said. ‘I was out for almost five months and I almost forgot how it feels stepping out on the court once again. It [took] just a couple of games [to settle] and she made it very easy for me to enjoy it and try to go for it.’
Williams, 44, expressed relief simply at being back. ‘It’s always amazing to be here. I never expected to be back on this court,’ she said. ‘It was just a really cool moment. I never thought this would happen.’
The 23-time Grand Slam champion last won the US Open mixed doubles title alongside Max Mirnyi in 1998, five years before Alcaraz was born. She has not competed in singles since injuring her knee at Wimbledon and did not enter the singles draw in New York.
Alcaraz was wearing a compression sleeve on his right arm throughout. BBC Sport tennis correspondent Russell Fuller observed that, while the day provided useful court time for the Spaniard, his display did not clarify his chances of contending in the singles event, which begins in just under three weeks.
Prize fund and format under scrutiny
The revamped format, introduced last year, has drawn persistent criticism for giving singles stars direct entry into the main draw while established doubles players must come through qualifying rounds. Britons Glasspool and Henry Patten both had to qualify on Monday before competing in the main event.
The financial incentive for the tournament is substantial. According to Front Office Sports, the USTA raised the championship prize from $200,000 in 2024 to $1 million last year, with this year’s prize remaining at $1 million.
Last year’s 16-team draw included just one pairing of two doubles specialists: Italy’s Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori. According to Sportico, Errani and Vavassori, the defending champions, lost just one set in four matches en route to the title. This year, no doubles-specialist pairing reached the semi-finals.
Patten and Katerina Siniakova, who had advanced to the quarter-finals as the top-ranked pairing, were beaten by husband-and-wife duo Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina. Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka, women’s world number one, lost to the same British-Czech pairing and lasted just 49 minutes on court.
Monfils, discussing the dynamic with Svitolina ahead of their semi-final, said: ‘I’m a big fan of her game and mentality. Sometimes I think she’s ice and I’m the fire. We needed to find the balance. We did today.’
The other semi-final will see Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev take on Czech pair Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik. With no doubles specialists in the final four, the USTA has the semi-final line-up it envisaged when it redesigned the event.
