Tennis leans into entertainment with US Open mixed doubles

Is sports a competition or entertainment? Obviously, it’s a little of both, but where organizations draw the line is always interesting.

That’s why the U.S. Open Tennis Championships’ experiment with its mixed doubles format is so compelling. The USTA did away with the traditional mixed doubles tournament, which consisted of 32 teams of players who largely focused on doubles, the ugly stepsister of tennis’ singles events.

So the USTA, much to the chagrin of tennis purists, replaced its old mixed doubles format with a two-day quick-set competition with most teams largely consisting of top singles players. So Emma Raducanu played with Carlos Alcaraz, Madison Keys with Francis Tiafoe.  Last year’s mixed doubles champions were granted a wildcard, creating the compelling storyline of whether the duo can compete against star singles players competing on their turf (so far, the answer is yes).

“Sports is about entertainment, and it was very highly entertaining,” ESPN commentator Mary Joe Fernandez said on a call today with reporters previewing the network’s coverage of the Open. Her colleague, Patrick McEnroe, added, “We’re competing not just with other sports, but with other entertainment vehicles. And I think it’s been absolute, I’d call it a home run if I was in baseball, but I’ll call it four aces in a row.

“I can’t say that I ever thought I’d be calling mixed doubles for seven straight hours on ESPN, which I did yesterday.”

And it’s working financially. Courtside tickets were going for $262 for tonight’s semifinals and finals. This is an event whose previous finals were a throw-in during the early afternoon of the women’s or men’s singles finals. Last year, the Open awarded $642,000 in mixed doubles prize money to 32 teams, or 64 players. This year, the prize money is $1 million winner-take-all for 16 teams, or 32 players.

“But I mean, we have to be honest here, and I’m someone that had more, way more success in doubles than I did in singles in my career, and I played quite a bit of mixed doubles early on in my career,” McEnroe said. “Nobody comes to watch mixed doubles. I mean, fans, I’m talking about television, have zero interest in mixed doubles. That’s just a reality.”

The mixed doubles tournament is occurring during fan week, the six days before singles play starts, which features qualifying and other events like a musical concert and a charity exhibition. The mixed event matches are quick, consisting of best-of-four sets with no ad scoring. Played on the two main show courts, Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, attendance clearly is more robust than the standard mixed doubles tournament held during the second week of the Slam.

McEnroe predicted the Australian Open would follow suit, but not the more tradition-bound Wimbledon.

The USTA is hardly alone; sports leagues are frequently trying to innovate to keep fans’ attention. The NFL is constantly tweaking its rules to respond to fans. The new kickoff rule that penalizes the kicking team if the kicker boots the ball into the endzone, thereby ensuring a return, is a case in point. MLB instituted a pitch clock and banned the shift. Then there is the example of the Savannah Bananas, the traveling baseball circus that sells out stadiums and whose ticket prices frequently are higher than nearby MLB games.  

Still, the change to the mixed doubles event wasn’t a minor tweak. It has all but discarded all of the native competitors whose livelihoods depend on these events, changed the rules, and by staging it before the real Grand Slam gets underway, threatens to give it a hit and giggle exhibition feel.

David Law, a co-host of the popular Tennis Podcast, recently expressed on the platform his desire to see more traditional doubles players in the event, aiming to create a singles player versus doubles player vibe. Indeed, the defending champions, the Italians Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, are clearly playing like the future of doubles players hinges on their outcome, and to make a point that single players can’t just do what they do.

That said, most fans are there to see the single players compete with and against each other, not to witness an intra-tennis argument about the worth of doubles competitors played out on the court.

McEnroe, for his part, believes the case is settled and the mixed event format is here to stay. And he had one more bold take to finish the call: a U.S. man will win the Open. An American male hasn’t won a Grand Slam since Andy Roddick took the Open in 2003. Taylor Fritz made the final last year, losing to Jannik Sinner. ESPN surely would be happy if that prediction proved true.