Venus Williams joins a 29-team scramble for 16 US Open mixed doubles places
The USTA's revamped two-day showcase is oversubscribed, and half the field will be decided by wild card.
The US Open's rebuilt mixed doubles championship has a problem most events would envy: far more stars want in than there is room for. The USTA's latest entry update, published on 3 August, lists 29 teams competing for the 16 places in a main draw that runs across just two days.
Thirteen pairs joined after the initial list of 16 was announced on 27 July. The most eye-catching is Venus Williams, who will partner Alexander Bublik. Elina Svitolina enters alongside her husband Gael Monfils, who is expected to play his final Grand Slam event in New York, and the newly married Katie Boulter and Alex de Minaur have signed up too. Sabalenka and Djokovic still head the list on combined singles ranking, with defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori and 2025 runners-up Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud also entered.
Half the field is at the organiser's discretion
The scramble is a direct consequence of how the event was rebuilt in 2025: moved out of the second week, compressed into a two-day showcase and given a $1 million winner's cheque explicitly to pull singles players in. It worked, and the qualification maths is now unforgiving. The entry window closes at noon on 17 August, at which point only the top six teams by combined singles ranking are directly accepted. Eight places are handed out as wild cards on a date still to be announced, and the last two are won through an eight-team qualifying draw on Monday 24 August.
That leaves the USTA choosing half the field by hand. With names like Williams and Monfils sitting outside automatic qualification on ranking alone, the wild card announcement becomes a scheduling and box-office decision as much as a sporting one.
What it means on site
The championship is played from Monday 24 to Wednesday 26 August at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, with the main draw on the 25th and 26th in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium. The first two days carry free-to-attend matches, in the Grandstand on Monday and Louis Armstrong on Tuesday, putting a star-heavy field in front of crowds who have not bought a ticket for it.
It is a useful reminder for anyone programming an event: the fastest way to fill a slot is to make it short, well paid and impossible to ignore. The harder part is what the US Open faces now, which is telling thirteen teams they are not playing.
