Jakub Mensik and Karolina Muchova are US Open Grand Slam winners. They came from behind in the deciding tiebreak in the mixed doubles semifinal against Andrey Rublev and Mirra Andreeva, then went to a decider in the final against Flavio Cobolli and Belinda Bencic, taking that 10-6.
The tennis was great, and many of the new doubles partnerships were so strong that the players should play together in other events. That wasn't the problem.
The issue was how the US Open scheduled the mixed doubles semifinals and final after the previous day, after getting the first-round and quarterfinal matches done earlier in the day. The reason for that was an exhibition match featuring Roger Federer later in the evening.
US Open's mixed doubles schedule was weird and wrong
This created an oddity with when people could see mixed doubles, and how late the matches started and were pushed to the end of the second day of the main draw. The first semi-final match didn't begin until 7 am ET, and because all the semifinal contests went to a deciding tie-break, the final didn't start until after 10 pm ET.
That is too late for the most important match in a Grand Slam to start. What would have been better is the semis starting at 5 pm with the final being played closer to 8 pm ET.
Maybe the US Open wasn't so focused on making broadcast sponsors happy ahead of the main draw of singles (which begins on Sunday, August 30). Instead, the hope was that people going to the tennis center would show up early, stay late, and spend lots of money on concessions and food.
Tennis fans already assume the US Open wants to make big money on ticket sales alone, as the prices are too high for most working people. This is one reason that New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani secured 1,000 tickets for the final major of the year so that they could be sold for the "low" price of $100.
That isn't meant to be sarcastic. For the US Open, $100 is relatively cheap. That means most people can't afford to go, and the theory that the sport is already too expensive for people without loads of extra money seems to be proven by how much a single ticket to the tournament costs.
According to Front Office Sports, the average ticket price is as much as $617 for this year's US Open. A ridiculous amount.
The ultimate problem with the mixed doubles part of the event was that the most important matches were scheduled too late in the day and mostly for people who had to buy expensive tickets to be there and then pay for overpriced concessions. Meanwhile, many potential viewers on streaming and TV likely tuned out because of the late start. The US Open dropped the ball on the scheduling aspect.
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