Czech pair beat Bencic and Cobolli in deciding tiebreak
Revamped event draws strong crowds at Arthur Ashe
Singles stars dominate after doubles specialists exit
To many who came to the US Open grounds this week, the showpiece of the mixed doubles championship came Tuesday afternoon, with the returns of Serena Williams (after four years away from tennis) and Carlos Alcaraz (after four months out with a wrist injury).
To the players who remained in the field after Williams and Alcaraz exited in the quarter-finals, the real highlight was Wednesday night’s final at Arthur Ashe Stadium, with its $1m in prize money on the line. Karolína Muchová and Jakub Menšík made the most of the spotlight, beating Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 1-6 (10-6) for the title.
Their win capped an event that, in a reversal of recent years, was dominated by singles players instead of doubles specialists. The Czech duo beat Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev 5-4 (8-6) 3-5 (11-9) and the runners-up bested Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils 4-5 (7-9) 4-1 (10-5) in a pair of competitive semi-finals that each lasted over an hour, making for a final that finished just before midnight.
“This format of a tournament, it went really quickly,” said Muchová, who was playing her first matches since losing the Wimbledon final in June. “I’m obviously super happy that we managed to win. It was not my expectation.”
Since its format was reimagined last year in an effort to entice the top singles players to participate, the mixed doubles competition has drawn criticism. The revamp moved the tournament a week before the start of singles play and raised the winners’ prize from $200,000 to $1m, but cut the field to 16 and drew outcry from doubles specialists kept out of the draw. The 2025 champions, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, were specialists, but some questioned whether the new event - with its four-game sets until the final, no ad-scoring and a 10-point tiebreak - should even be categorized as a grand slam title.
Tournament organizers responded this year, adjusting the format to include an eight-team qualifying draw that allowed more specialists to enter. They gathered a captivating field, headlined by Williams playing in New York for the first time since the 2022 match that was her presumptive farewell. Even so, by Tuesday’s end, the tournament had lost not just its highest-profile names - Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka and Felix Auger-Aliassime and Alex Eala made quick first-round exits - but also its doubles specialist teams, all four of whom were out by the quarter-finals.
What the semi-finalist pairs lacked in spectacle or doubles pedigree, they made up for in another category: bringing the fun that this format encouraged. Asked how they’d spend the time before the final, Bencic answered “beer”, earning a laugh and slight panic from Cobolli. Muchová and Menšík played their matches in color-coordinated pink-and-maroon looks; when Muchová first floated the idea for their outfits, Menšík had to ask what maroon was. Andreeva joked she used to have a crush on the nine-years-older Rublev.
As for Monfils and Svitolina, few pairs in the sport know each other better: they married in 2021 and have a three-year-old daughter, but had never played doubles together before this week. While Svitolina is the world No 9, the 307th-ranked Monfils is set to retire after this season and received a singles wild card. Neither has ever advanced past a semi-final at a grand slam.
They carried the momentum of their first two wins into Wednesday’s semi-final, winning an even first set in a tiebreak by holding serve and forcing long rallies. At 7-7 in the tiebreak, Bencic’s backhand hit her out-of-position partner, and Cobolli then double-faulted to end the set.
The Italian wore his frustration as Monfils and Svitolina held for the first game of the second set. He double-faulted his opening serve, but he recovered to save triple break point in a moment that became a turning point for their championship hopes. He and Bencic had the night’s first break in the third game, again from three points down, and two games later broke Monfils without resistance to take the set. As the match pushed past an hour, Monfils and Svitolina ran out of steam – even as the Ashe crowd urged them on with its loudest cheers of the night – and Bencic and Cobolli won 21 of the final 26 points.
The second semi-final was even more evenly matched. Behind the 6ft 5in Menšík’s aggressive net play and Muchová’s strong returns, the Czech duo won the first set in an 8-6 tiebreak, a graceful backhanded volley by Muchova securing it. Andreeva and Rublev took their turn in the second, sending winners down the alleys and forcing the Czechs to work for points.
The back-and-forth continued in the tiebreak before Muchová and Menšík – with the help of Menšík’s big serve – erased two match points and ran off the final four points.
The Czechs had just 17 minutes to recover before their late-night final. At first, the lack of a break didn’t seem to much affect them – they took the first set behind eight winners and Menšík’s four aces. But Bencic and Cobolli, as they had earlier, grabbed a wave of momentum in the second set, breaking a wobbly Muchová to go up 4-1 before Bencic’s cross-court forehand in the seventh game sent the match to a tiebreak.
Muchová and Menšík delivered clutch points on their final serves late in the tiebreak; Bencic and Cobolli netted three of four, and Menšík’s seventh ace of the night on triple championship point won it.
The crowd had significantly thinned by the time the duo lifted their trophy, but the earlier turnout seemed proof the US Open has made itself a three-week event. Ashe was mostly full for Wednesday’s semi-finals. The stadium was packed a night earlier for a pair of exhibition matches honoring Roger Federer, featuring the likes of Andy Roddick, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi and the 20-time major winner himself.
Throughout their mixed doubles run, the Czechs said their focus remained on the singles draw. Muchová, the world No 6, has reached two major finals and the semi-finals in New York; Menšík, enjoying a career-best season, will seek to advance past the third round here for the first time. Singles play begins Sunday. The road to another title on Ashe will be more difficult, but the pair – and the tournament’s organizers – will surely see this week as a welcome prelude.
“We had really great matches to play,” said Menšík, who had never played mixed doubles before this week. “It’s a pretty different discipline [from singles, but] at the same time it’s good that we tried a lot of things on the court. So, of course, it gives you a little bit of boost of confidence.”
