Update — Aug. 25, 2026, 2:30 p.m. ET: The bracket will not produce the semifinal it was arranged around. Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic, the top seeds, were beaten in the first round on Arthur Ashe Stadium by Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten, 1-4, 4-2, 10-2, in 48 minutes. The top seeds took the opening set quickly, led early in the second, and then lost the set and the match tiebreak; Siniakova closed it with an ace past Djokovic. Siniakova and Patten, the No. 1-ranked doubles players on their respective tours, had reached the main draw only through Monday’s qualifying, and were drawn against the top seeds because Frances Tiafoe’s withdrawal reopened that section. They meet Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils in the quarterfinals; the married pair beat Alexandra Eala and Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-1, 4-1. Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik also advanced, past Kristina Mladenovic and Marcelo Arevalo. Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz had not yet played at the time of this update.
Update — Aug. 25, 2026, 11:30 a.m. ET: Both blanks on this draw sheet have been filled, and one first-round match has changed. Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz open against Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool, who came through Monday’s qualifying, in the last first-round match on Arthur Ashe Stadium, not before 2 p.m. ET. Frances Tiafoe has withdrawn from the event with a right wrist injury two days after losing the Cincinnati final, so the team of Tiafoe and Leylah Fernandez is out of the draw. Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic now open against the second qualifying team, Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten, the No. 1-ranked doubles players on their respective tours. The vacated place went to Kristina Mladenovic and Marcelo Arevalo, who had lost to Routliffe and Glasspool in qualifying; they face Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik. Tiafoe’s status for the singles main draw, which begins Sunday, has not been addressed by the player or his team.
The most anticipated match of the US Open’s opening week has only one team in it. Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz, the wild card pairing that turned the Mixed Doubles Championship into the most discussed event of the tournament’s opening week, will begin on Tuesday against a qualifier. As of Monday afternoon, the qualifier did not exist. Eight teams started playing at 11 a.m. on Grandstand for the last two places in the 16-team main draw, and until two of them win twice, the other half of the biggest match on the schedule is a blank line on the sheet.
The draw was released Sunday. Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic are the top seeds. Jessica Pegula and Taylor Fritz are seeded second, Amanda Anisimova and Learner Tien third, Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli fourth. Williams and Alcaraz, in on a wild card, are unseeded and land in the fourth seeds’ quarter.
That last detail shapes the week. Williams and Alcaraz are in the top half but not in Sabalenka and Djokovic’s quarter, which means that if both teams win twice they cannot meet before the semifinals — and on this schedule the semifinals are Wednesday night in Arthur Ashe Stadium. The bracket keeps the two pairings the event was promoted around apart for as long as it can, then pushes them together under lights.
Neither has a soft opening. Sabalenka and Djokovic drew Leylah Fernandez and Frances Tiafoe, wild cards, with Tiafoe arriving two days after losing the Cincinnati final. Williams and Alcaraz would face the winner of Bencic and Cobolli against Taylor Townsend and Alexander Zverev in the quarterfinals; Sabalenka and Djokovic would get Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils or Alexandra Eala and Felix Auger-Aliassime. In the other half, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori — champions in 2024 and again in 2025, and unseeded here on a wild card — open against Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev.
The qualifying event is where the tournament’s redesign shows its seams. When the USTA rebuilt mixed doubles last year around singles stars, it pushed the specialists who had traditionally contested it toward the margins. Those specialists are now playing a Monday play-in for two spots. The field includes Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten, the top seeds and the No. 1 doubles players on their respective tours; Gabriela Dabrowski and Harri Heliovaara; Luisa Stefani and Neal Skupski; Aleksandra Krunic and Mate Pavic; Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool; Kristina Mladenovic and Marcelo Arevalo; and wild cards Tatjana Maria and Valentin Vacherot, and Peyton Stearns and Christian Harrison. Two of them will spend Tuesday on a show court opposite a 23-time major champion or Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik.
The format compresses everything. Through the semifinals, matches are best-of-three with sets played to four games, no-ad scoring, a tiebreak at 4-4 and a 10-point match tiebreak in place of a third set. The final reverts to six-game sets for the first two, still no-ad, with the match tiebreak retained. One break of serve effectively decides a set, which narrows the advantage a doubles specialist would normally accumulate over two hours — and also limits how much court time is being asked of Williams, who is 44, and of Alcaraz, who has not played a competitive match since April.
Alcaraz is the more consequential of those two variables. He is the defending men’s singles champion, is seeded second in a draw missing Jannik Sinner, and arrives in New York without a tune-up event after a wrist injury that cost him four months. Mixed doubles on Tuesday and Wednesday will be his first competitive tennis of any kind since Barcelona, six days before his singles campaign begins.
The schedule is tight. First round and quarterfinals are Tuesday, Aug. 25, on Louis Armstrong Stadium from 10 a.m. and Arthur Ashe from 11 a.m. Semifinals and the final are Wednesday, Aug. 26, in Ashe from 7 p.m. The winning pair takes $1 million. Monday’s qualifying on Grandstand and Tuesday’s Armstrong matches are free to attend with a Fan Access Pass; ESPN is carrying the event alongside singles qualifying.
Whether the draw delivers the semifinal it was arranged to produce depends on four matches that will be over inside about 90 minutes each. The architecture is there. Wednesday night is where it points.
