The United States Tennis Association announced on Saturday that Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz have been given a wild card into the mixed doubles event at the US Open, ESPN reports.
Alcaraz's response, posted on X, was three words and a fire emoji: "Let's gooooo!"
What is and is not happening
Williams is not in the singles draw. The women's singles wild card went to Sofia Kenin instead.
She returned to tennis this summer, lost in the first round at Wimbledon and sustained a knee injury there, and played doubles with her sister Venus at the Cincinnati Open. This is her first appearance at the US Open since 2022. She won the mixed doubles there once before, in 1998, with Max Mirnyi.
Alcaraz has not played since April because of a right wrist injury and announced this week that he would return. He is ranked number two and is a two-time US Open men's singles champion defending his title.
So the pairing is two players coming back from injury, one of them entering a Grand Slam event for the first time in four years, in the only competition at the tournament either has agreed to play together. It is a considerable draw and it is not a comeback in the singles sense, which is what the announcement carefully does not claim.
The event was redesigned for exactly this
The reason a pairing like this is possible is a format change. Mixed doubles at the US Open is now a two-day, 16-team event, restructured last year specifically to attract top singles players who would never commit to a full-length doubles draw. There is $1 million for the winning team.
The other entries make the point. Aryna Sabalenka is playing with Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek with Casper Ruud, Jessica Pegula with Taylor Fritz. Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, the defending champions, are the one pair in that list who are doubles specialists.
That is the tension the redesign has created, and it is a real argument within the sport rather than a manufactured one. Compressing the event and adding prize money has produced a field of household names and a great deal of attention for a discipline that normally gets none. It has also, in the view of players who have spent careers on the doubles tour, turned their event into an exhibition in which they are outnumbered by singles players. Both things are true.
What this is worth
Two days, sixteen teams, one match at a time: it is a short competition and nobody involved will pretend otherwise. But a 23-time Grand Slam champion walking onto a court in New York is not a small thing regardless of the format, and the crowd on Tuesday will not be there for the doubles.
We verified this from one publication. Williams's age is not stated in it and we have not supplied one, and the article gives no indication of her plans beyond this event.
