The US Open is moving its mixed doubles of the tournament for a week before Singles, hoping that the improved format and price for $ 1 million will convince the best players to chase the Grand Slam title.
This year’s event will be presented with 16 teams competing for two days in shorter matches. Tournament organizers believe that they can attract the biggest stars of sports, many of which have gone through doubles to keep fresh for singles.
“I would say the reason is to reach out to more fans and develop a fan base around the world,” said Lew Sherr, Executive Director and CEO Tennis Association. “But the way to do this is to have the biggest names in the sport that participates in doubles, and show them how they joined and played in another format, we think it is exciting. In fact, we know it’s exciting. ”
The plan, which was announced on Tuesday, calls on questioning the mixed doubles 19th and 20 August this year, during the week when the qualifying rounds for men and women are held. The main game in singles will begin on August 24th.
The matches in the early round will be the best of three feature fiction of only four matches, while the decisive point was played in Deuce. Thebreakers would be 4-4-4 to 6-6 in a regular match-and 10-point tiebreaker would be played if the teams split the sets and not the third file.
Only the finals will be very similar to the Grand Slam match: the best of the three featured six-played games without scoring, Tiebreakers for a 6-6 and 10-point match match.
Sherr said the Usta was discussing the change of format in previous years, but this idea actually highlighted after last year when the “mixed madness” event during the Drew Singles Stars, such as Coco Gauff, Naomi Osaka, Nick Kyrgios and Ben Shelton. , and was won by Stefanos Tsitsipas and Paul Bados.
“We knew and in the years we had interviews, for example, why they would not participate and we understand the challenges of planning,” Sherr said. “I think last year’s role with this mixed madness event actually informed about our thinking that if it could unlock this week and release the best singles players to attend because it did not endanger their fitness or their health in single, there was a huge opportunity there Attract them and we saw that.
For this event, the price was $ 500,000, which had only four teams. By doubling the winning money to the price and extending the Sherr field, it believes that it will create a worthy of Grand Slam title to keep it as an exhibition.
“Athletes played hard,” Sherr said. “It wasn’t an exhibition, it wasn’t a hit and a giggling, no children were to court.” It was a competition and it was a test for me. Athletes would compete and the answer was yes. Now we have the opportunity for the World Championship, the Grand Slam Championship, and we think bets are rising only by making it a real event. ”
Eight teams will get direct access to their combined singles charts, with eight other teams into the field of surgery. Sherr refused to name all the players who committed, but said he showed a lot of interest in some teams may be announced in the coming weeks, long before the field in the summer.
The tournament will be played in Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong, the two largest stadiums, and the ESPN will be broadcast in Primetime, an exhibition that is rarely served doubles.
However, doubles experts who are expected to pay out the Grand Slam payments will be printed and will now lose access to one of them. To compensate for this, Sherr said that the money that was allocated to a 32-thin mixed doubles at last year’s US Open would be redirected to the singles of men and women.
“Yes, there are some who will be disappointed that they will not have the opportunity to compete in this event,” Sherr said. “On the other hand, we know that there is a huge opportunity for globally more doubles interest and there may be a cascading effect that the mixed creates a greater focus on twice as many men and women when we get into this part of this part of this part of the tournament.
“We will have to see how it happens, but we know that our mixed competition has historically competed with male and female singles, so the fields suffered and suffered attention. This is a chance to give him a huge reflector for two nights. ”
