New York – The new U.S. Open Tag Team Championship has attracted a lot of criticism about everything from its format to its field.
Most are singles players, some rarely play doubles and don’t feel like a Grand Slam champion, not an exhibition – it’s what one player calls Tuesday’s champion.
The fast event has a shorter game and smaller game, with two teams already having trophys, with a prize of $1 million. Whoever wins won won’t apologize for the way they get it.
“It’s the official mixed doubles. If we make the final tomorrow, I’m sure everyone will be determined to win it.”
Third-place seeds Ruud and Iga Swiatek easily won two games to reach Wednesday’s semi-finals. Defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori are also the only traditional mixed doubles team for 16 teams.
Past U.S. open singles champions Carlos Alcaraz and Emma Raducanu lost 4-2, 4-2 to Jessica Pegula and No. 1 seed Jack Draper, quickly being eliminated. No. 2 seeds Taylor Fritz and Elena Rybakina also lost 4-2, 4-2 to Errani and Vavassori.
Fritz was the runner-up in the U.S. Open last year in men’s singles, while past Wimbledon women’s singles champion Rybakina is exactly the type of player the US Tennis Association is looking for when revamping the game.
Now, before the singles game started Sunday, a 16-team game played in two days, and the mixed doubles game started, and organizers believe that singles stars would be more interested if they didn’t interfere with their rest and recovery.
Traditional doubles experts such as Errani and Vavassori are the biggest critics of these changes. Even Karolina Muchova called the event an exhibition in a post-match interview as her team opened the opening victory for Venus Williams and Reilly Opelka.
The $1 million prize for winning teams will be a huge driving force for doubles players, but Errani and Vavassori are the only traditional doubles teams in the game.
“We also play for all the doubles players who can’t compete here, so we try to do our best,” Vavassori said.
Neither Errani nor Vavassori initially knew whether they had a chance to defend their championship in the new format, which allowed eight teams to provide automatic positions based on the players’ combined singles rankings. Other attractions are wildcards granted by USTA.
The Italians got one of them, and they showed off their skills with a first round victory that took only 42 minutes. A shortened format can speed up the game knowing that the winning team must play twice on the first day to reach the semi-finals and finals on Wednesday night.
When Errani and Vavassori won the championship at Flushing Meadows last year, the second week of the game was in a stadium with lots of empty seats.
The new time has been shown in the fact that the mixed doubles have been played, and the only game is usually the singles match qualifying event. What USTA calls “Fan Week” is free, so Louis Armstrong Stadium is packed with opening matches, attracting a much larger crowd with mixed doubles.
After Errani and Vavassori had their opener in just 19 minutes, some fans may not even realize that the game is about to enter the second set. In traditional tennis scoring, they will have to win 6 games instead of 4 games to win the game.
“I think some people can look at it easily because they have to do less work to win the game. Endurance is definitely a lesser factor, and now there are only four in the first two rounds, but I think that’s good.” “This keeps pace going. The game open to the U.S. is definitely better and can make the game in and out faster and more people in and out of Armstrong.”
The semi-finals used 10-point matches to win the finals instead of the third game four games. Only the finals are similar to regular games, with six games, six games, six innings in the knockout round, and the finals in the third set.
The team is still withdrawn and enters the final hours, with top-ranked Jannik Sinner getting sick after losing to Alcaraz in the Cincinnati final on Monday.
