The dream team of Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz made a winning start but could not progress to the final stages of US Open’s mixed doubles tournament. The result means Bencic and Cobolli will advance to Wednesday’s finale of the unorthodox competition, when the semi-finals and finals will be played back-to-back. Williams, often considered the best women’s tennis player in history and Spain’s seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Alcaraz fell to Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and Flavio Cobolli of Italy, 5-4, 4-1.
The Czech pairing of Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik, both highly ranked singles players, realized quickly they had to adjust when they faced Kristina Mladenovic of France and Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador, both of whom have won Grand Slam doubles titles. The pair, dressed in coordinated purple and black jersey-type outfits, smiled as they bantered and joked on changeovers. The audience, which roared their arrival in Tuesday’s first round, was a bit more subdued in the second match. One first-time team that scored unexpected success was the husband-and-wife pairing of France’s Gael Monfils and Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina.
The event, in its second year, will have a new winner after defending champions Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani, both doubles specialists, lost to the Russian pair of Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev 1-4, 4-1, 11-9. They won two matches in the shortened format, including a tightly contested quarterfinal win over Siniakova and Patten 5-4, 4-5 and 10-8 in the decisive tie-break.
“We had zero expectations,” Svitolina said after the match.
