Defending champions open with win at new US Open mixed doubles tournament

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. Open overhauled its mixed doubles tournament in hopes of drawing the top singles players.

The defending champions don't intend to move out of the way so easily.

Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori earned the first win in the tournament, beating the No. 2-seeded team of Taylor Fritz and Elena Rybakina 4-2, 4-2 on Tuesday.

Traditional doubles specialists like the Italian combo were among the biggest critics of the changes, with a format that feels more like an exhibition than one worthy of a Grand Slam trophy. Karolina Muchova, in fact, actually referred to it as an exhibition during the postmatch interview after her team's opening victory.

The prize of $1 million to the winning team would be a huge boost to doubles players, but Errani and Vavassori are the only traditional doubles team in the event.

“We also are playing for all the doubles players who could not compete here, so we tried to do our best,” Vavassori said.

They were set for a second-round match against Muchova and Andrey Rublev, who beat Venus Williams and Reilly Opelka 4-2, 5-4 (4).

Fritz, last year's U.S. Open runner-up in men's singles, and Rybakina, a past Wimbledon women's singles champion, are exactly the types of players the U.S. Tennis Association was seeking when it revamped the tournament.

Now a 16-team event played over two days, the mixed doubles starts well before the singles tournaments begin on Sunday, with organizers believing singles stars would be more interested in playing if it didn't interfere with their rest and recovery during that event.

Errani and Vavassori didn't even know originally if they would get a chance to defend their title in the new format, which gives eight teams automatic spots based on the players' combined singles rankings. The other spots are wild cards awarded by the USTA.

The Italians were given one of them and they showed off their skills in a victory that took just 42 minutes. The shortened format allows the matches to speed by, knowing winning teams would have to play twice on the first day to reach the semifinals and finals on Wednesday night.

The highlight match for the first-round schedule was to come later Tuesday, when Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu took on the top-seeded team of Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper.

When Errani and Vavassori won the title last year in Flushing Meadows, it was late in the second week of the tournament in a stadium with plenty of empty seats.

The new schedule has mixed doubles being played now when usually the only competitions taking place are the qualifying events for the singles tournaments. Admission onto the grounds during what the USTA calls “fan week” is free, so Louis Armstrong Stadium stadium was packed for the opening match, a far bigger crowd than mixed doubles generally draws.

Some fans may not have even realized that the match was headed to a second set after Errani and Vavassori took the opener in just 19 minutes. In traditional tennis scoring, they would have had to win 6 games instead of 4 to win the set.

The sets to four games with a 10-point match tiebreaker instead of a third set were used through the semifinals. Only the final would resemble a regular match, with sets to six games, with tiebreakers at 6-all and a 10-point tiebreak for a third set.

Teams were still being withdrawn and entered into the final hours, with top-ranked Jannik Sinner pulling out Tuesday morning after getting ill during his loss to Alcaraz on Monday in the Cincinnati final. So the final entry list featured many names that were never on the original one.

The No. 3 seeded team of Iga Swiatek — playing less than 24 hours after winning the women's title in Cincinnati — and Casper Ruud routed Americans Madison Keys and Frances Tiafoe 4-1, 4-2. Caty McNally and Lorenzo Musetti beat Naomi Osaka and Gael Monfils 5-3, 4-2.

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