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Business Recorder
5 hours ago
- Sport
- Business Recorder
Venus Williams part of star-filled US Open mixed-doubles event
The mixed-doubles field at the US Open, which begins next month in New York, will be a star-studded event. The United States Tennis Association announced Tuesday the eight teams receiving direct entries into the tournament, as well as six wild-card entrants. Two more teams will take part as wild cards. Venus Williams, 45, received a wild-card entry and will play with big-serving American Reilly Opelka. The former World No. 1 in singles, Williams is an accomplished doubles player on the biggest stages. She won two Grand Slam mixed-doubles titles in 1998, as well as three Olympic gold medals and 14 Grand Slam women's doubles events with her younger sister, Serena. Venus played on the WTA Tour last week for the first time since March 2024 at the Mubadala Citi DC Open. After becoming the oldest player to win a WTA Tour singles match in 21 years, she lost in the second round in Washington to Magdalena Frech of Poland. The mixed-doubles competition in New York will feature most of the men and women ranked in the Top 10. The 16 mixed-double pairs will be vying for a $1 million first prize. These top players will not be fitting mixed doubles in with their singles play. Mixed-doubles matches will take place over two days, Aug. 19 and 20, before play in the main draw begins. Receiving direct entries were the following teams: No. 11 Emma Navarro and No. 1 Jannik Sinner; Belinda Bencic and No. 3 Alexander Zverev; No. 12 Elena Rybakina and No. 4 Taylor Fritz; No. 10 Paula Badosa and No. 5 Jack Draper; No. 7 Amanda Anisimova and No. 9 Holger Rune; No. 3 Iga Swiatek and No. 13 Casper Ruud; No. 4 Jessica Pegula and No. 15 Tommy Paul; and No. 5 Mirra Andreeva and No. 14 Daniil Medvedev. The other wild-card entrants are Emma Raducanu and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz; Olga Danilovic and No. 6 Novak Djokovic; Taylor Townsend and No. 7 Ben Shelton; No. 8 Madison Keys and No. 12 Frances Tiafoe; and the reigning U.S. Open mixed-doubles champions, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori.
GMA Network
19 hours ago
- Sport
- GMA Network
Venus Williams part of star-filled U.S. Open mixed-doubles event
The mixed-doubles field at the U.S. Open, which begins next month in New York, will be a star-studded event. The United States Tennis Association announced Tuesday the eight teams receiving direct entries into the tournament, as well as six wild-card entrants. Two more teams will take part as wild cards. Venus Williams, 45, received a wild-card entry and will play with big-serving American Reilly Opelka. The former World No. 1 in singles, Williams is an accomplished doubles player on the biggest stages. She won two Grand Slam mixed-doubles titles in 1998, as well as three Olympic gold medals and 14 Grand Slam women's doubles events with her younger sister, Serena. Venus played on the WTA Tour last week for the first time since March 2024 at the Mubadala Citi DC Open. After becoming the oldest player to win a WTA Tour singles match in 21 years, she lost in the second round in Washington to Magdalena Frech of Poland. The mixed-doubles competition in New York will feature most of the men and women ranked in the Top 10. The 16 mixed-double pairs will be vying for a $1 million first prize. These top players will not be fitting mixed doubles in with their singles play. Mixed-doubles matches will take place over two days, Aug. 19 and 20, before play in the main draw begins. Receiving direct entries were the following teams: No. 11 Emma Navarro and No. 1 Jannik Sinner; Belinda Bencic and No. 3 Alexander Zverev; No. 12 Elena Rybakina and No. 4 Taylor Fritz; No. 10 Paula Badosa and No. 5 Jack Draper; No. 7 Amanda Anisimova and No. 9 Holger Rune; No. 3 Iga Swiatek and No. 13 Casper Ruud; No. 4 Jessica Pegula and No. 15 Tommy Paul; and No. 5 Mirra Andreeva and No. 14 Daniil Medvedev. The other wild-card entrants are Emma Raducanu and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz; Olga Danilovic and No. 6 Novak Djokovic; Taylor Townsend and No. 7 Ben Shelton; No. 8 Madison Keys and No. 12 Frances Tiafoe; and the reigning U.S. Open mixed-doubles champions, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori. —Reuters/Field Level Media
Reuters
20 hours ago
- Sport
- Reuters
Venus Williams part of star-filled U.S. Open mixed-doubles event
July 29 - The mixed-doubles field at the U.S. Open, which begins next month in New York, will be a star-studded event. The United States Tennis Association announced Tuesday the eight teams receiving direct entries into the tournament, as well as six wild-card entrants. Two more teams will take part as wild cards. Venus Williams, 45, received a wild-card entry and will play with big-serving American Reilly Opelka. The former World No. 1 in singles, Williams is an accomplished doubles player on the biggest stages. She won two Grand Slam mixed-doubles titles in 1998, as well as three Olympic gold medals and 14 Grand Slam women's doubles events with her younger sister, Serena. Venus played on the WTA Tour last week for the first time since March 2024 at the Mubadala Citi DC Open. After becoming the oldest player to win a WTA Tour singles match in 21 years, she lost in the second round in Washington to Magdalena Frech of Poland. The mixed-doubles competition in New York will feature most of the men and women ranked in the Top 10. The 16 mixed-double pairs will be vying for a $1 million first prize. These top players will not be fitting mixed doubles in with their singles play. Mixed-doubles matches will take place over two days, Aug. 19 and 20, before play in the main draw begins. Receiving direct entries were the following teams: No. 11 Emma Navarro and No. 1 Jannik Sinner; Belinda Bencic and No. 3 Alexander Zverev; No. 12 Elena Rybakina and No. 4 Taylor Fritz; No. 10 Paula Badosa and No. 5 Jack Draper; No. 7 Amanda Anisimova and No. 9 Holger Rune; No. 3 Iga Swiatek and No. 13 Casper Ruud; No. 4 Jessica Pegula and No. 15 Tommy Paul; and No. 5 Mirra Andreeva and No. 14 Daniil Medvedev. The other wild-card entrants are Emma Raducanu and No. 2 Carlos Alcaraz; Olga Danilovic and No. 6 Novak Djokovic; Taylor Townsend and No. 7 Ben Shelton; No. 8 Madison Keys and No. 12 Frances Tiafoe; and the reigning U.S. Open mixed-doubles champions, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori. --Field Level Media
New York Times
21 hours ago
- Sport
- New York Times
U.S. Open announces mixed doubles direct entries, wild cards include Alcaraz and Raducanu
Now the U.S. Open mixed doubles fun can really begin. Heavy on glitz and singles stars, the 16-team tournament will be lighter on doubles players who have honed their skills on that tour. With registration closed, the United States Tennis Association (USTA) has announced 14 of the 16 teams, eight of them direct entries and six of them wild cards. Advertisement Last week, the USTA announced 25 high-profile teams as entries, but fewer than a third had a shot of making it straight into the new tournament, which will be held Aug. 19 and 20 at the Billie Jean King Tennis Center in New York City. It will conclude four days before the singles main draws begin. Teams with players who have the eight lowest combined singles rankings gain automatic entry. There are automatic places for defending men's singles champion Jannik Sinner, Wimbledon champion Iga Świątek and last year's U.S. Open finalist Taylor Fritz, but Carlos Alcaraz's partnership with Emma Raducanu, and 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic and compatriot Olga Danilović, both required wild cards. It's tough getting into a mixed doubles Grand Slam these days — well, this one, at least, Kateřina Siniaková and Marcelo Arévalo, two of the best doubles players in the world, are on the outside looking in. *Belinda Bencic entered with a special ranking of world No. 15. She is currently world No. 20. The first six wild card entries are as follows: The decision on the remaining two wild cards will be a test of the U.S. Open's less-than-unspoken priorities for a mixed doubles event designed to pack two stadiums over two days and draw eyeballs to the ESPN coverage of the event. That means getting the most famous stars to play, with $1 million for the winning team, eschewing any concerns about who is actually the best at the discipline. Townsend being the new world No. 1 in doubles, and Siniaková being the person she overtook to get there, is already secondary to the stardom factor. Townsend and Shelton getting a wild card has more to do with their pairing, bringing together the hot new thing of American men's tennis and a three-time Grand Slam semifinalist with a legitimate doubles star. They may actually be a good pick to win the thing. They played mixed in New York together before, reaching the semifinals in 2023, and Shelton played doubles this year with Rohan Bopanna, a former men's world No. 1. Advertisement The Alcaraz and Raducanu partnership is gold dust, and both have endorsement deals with Evian, which is a U.S. Open sponsor. Williams, the seven-time Grand Slam champion and 45-year-old Washington Open wild card who thrilled crowds in D.C., is an easy pick. She beat the world No. 35 Peyton Stearns in singles and won a doubles match with Hailey Baptiste. If a Williams sister is offering up her services to a tournament, she usually gets in. One player missing is Aryna Sabalenka, whose proposed partner, Grigor Dimitrov, withdrew with the pectoral muscle injury he sustained at Wimbledon. One of the most compelling athletes in the sport, Sabalenka has been on something of a reputation-enhancement campaign since her implosion in the French Open final and during the ensuing news conference, when she said Coco Gauff didn't win as much as she lost. It was raw, honest and poor form all at once, and it garnered a lot of online attention, most of it negative. She would be in line for a wild card if she entered, but with whom? What to do with Osaka and Kyrgios, who have not been setting the scoreboards alight for some time but had signed up for the tournament? When it comes to recognition in the wider sporting world, there is no argument against their inclusion. But Kyrgios has barely played professional tennis this year. Doubles players have criticized the USTA for devaluing a Grand Slam trophy. USTA executives have responded that not enough people were watching or even thinking about mixed doubles. Nothing, they argue, devalues an event more than that. So out went the 32-team tournament played alongside the singles events. In came first-to-four-games sets, with no-ad scoring and a match tiebreak at a set apiece. The business will get done well ahead of the singles, giving players a competitive warm-up and the broader tournament a huge promotional boost. The start of the U.S. Open proper on Aug. 24 should not take anyone by surprise. Advertisement The big surprise might be if all the players who have raised their hands to play actually play. The biggest complication might be the singles finals of the Cincinnati Open, which will take place on Monday, Aug. 18, the day before the mixed doubles start. Two years ago, Alcaraz and Djokovic slugged it out for nearly four hours in the men's final, in the intense Ohio summer heat. Would they have gotten on a plane and flown in for mixed doubles the next morning? Action is supposed to get underway beginning at 11 a.m. Tuesday the 19th. Theoretically, the USTA will have a few teams on reserve as injuries and scheduling conflicts arise. Who's going to agree to that? Maybe the actual doubles players of renown, people such as Siniaková and Arévalo, or Desirae Krawczyk and Evan King, or Hsieh Su-wei and Jan Zieliński. $1 million is $1 million after all — and the actual doubles players think they have a built-in advantage. Olympic results from last year go some distance toward proving that point. With two wild cards not to be announced until later — and considering no one asked for this input — here's who seems most likely to gain entry. And then:
Daily Mirror
6 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Mirror
Fears grow over Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz partnership after US Open change
Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu have entered the US Open mixed doubles this year, but there are doubts over whether the pairing will happen at Flushing Meadows There are concerns that Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu could become the latest pair to withdraw from playing mixed doubles at the US Open. The Grand Slam has changed the format of the event this year to encourage high profile entrants, but a few teams have already pulled out. The United States Tennis Association has brought in a new two-day format that will take place the week before the singles draw and see the winners bank $1million. Organisers will give eight entrants a place in the tournament based on their combined singles rankings, with eight others granted wildcards. The revamped format attracted some eye-catching pairings, including world No.1s Jannik Sinner and Aryna Sabalenka, who are playing with Emma Navarro and Grigor Dimitrov respectively. Meanwhile, Wimbledon champion Iga Swiatek is down to play with Casper Ruud and Novak Djokovic with Olga Danilovic. However, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paula Badosa have withdrawn amid rumours of a split in their relationship, while Jack Draper and Zheng Qinwen have also pulled out of the event which will take place on August 19-20. The Sun now reports that Alcaraz and Raducanu could follow suit so they can fully focus on the singles at Flushing Meadows. Raducanu famously ditched Andy Murray at Wimbledon in 2024 for the same reason – and the pairing are likely relying on a wildcard to compete anyway, given Raducanu's singles ranking of 46th in the world might not be high enough to qualify automatically. Their withdrawal is also made more likely by the fact that Alcaraz has just skipped the Canadian Open to manage a niggle following his defeat in the final at Wimbledon. "I have small muscle issues and I need to recover physically and mentally for what comes next,' he wrote. It would be a shame, given the excitement around the pairing, which Alcaraz announced during Queen's. 'She took a while,' he said of Raducanu's response to his proposition of the pairing. 'No, not that much…But obviously she had to ask, and she had to think a little bit. But it wasn't immediate, so…' Asked about the delay in making a decision, Raducanu then joked: "Gotta keep 'em on their toes. I mean, of course, I had to ask my team if they wanted me to play. "But for me, when he asked me, I was going to say yes, I just had to kind of go through the formality of asking my coach, so I didn't just make the decision." Alcaraz added: 'She's going to be the boss. The US Open came to us and gave us the opportunity to play mixed doubles. I'm super excited about it, it's going to be great, it was an amazing idea from the tournament." "I've known Emma since a long time ago – I have a really good relationship with her so it's going to be interesting. We are going to enjoy for sure, I'll try to put my doubles skills on and we'll try to win.'
