Venus Williams has entered the 2026 US Open Mixed Doubles Championship with Alexander Bublik, one of 13 teams added to a field that has nearly doubled in a week and now stands at 29 pairings chasing 16 main-draw places. The updated entry list, released Monday, expands on the initial 16 teams published July 27. Entries do not close until noon Eastern on Aug. 17, and the additions have already reshaped a competition that will admit only a fraction of those who sign up.
Six teams take main-draw places automatically, ordered by combined singles ranking at the moment the window shuts. Eight more are awarded wild cards, on a date the tournament has not set. The final two come through an eight-team qualifying draw played Aug. 24, itself made up of six direct entries and two wild cards. On the current list that leaves 23 of the 29 teams dependent on a wild card or on qualifying, and the number will climb if more pairs enter over the next two weeks.
The expansion has already moved the cut line. Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik, one of the new entries, slot in sixth on combined ranking and would hold the last automatic place if entries closed today, pushing Diana Shnaider and Daniil Medvedev to seventh and outside it. Alex Eala and Felix Auger-Aliassime, eighth when the first list appeared, now sit 11th without having done anything wrong. Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic remain first, ahead of Elena Rybakina and Taylor Fritz, Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev, Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud, and Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli.
The newcomers stretch from the top of the game to its margins. Anna Kalinskaya and Lorenzo Musetti, Emma Navarro and Tommy Paul, Maria Sakkari and Karen Khachanov, Katie Boulter and Alex de Minaur, and Tatjana Maria and Valentin Vacherot all joined. So did Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils, the married couple playing in what Monfils has said will be his final season, and a cluster of doubles specialists: Jelena Ostapenko and Marcelo Arevalo, Gabriela Dabrowski and Harri Heliovaara, and Demi Schuurs and Julian Cash.
Americans account for a large share of the field. Amanda Anisimova and Learner Tien sit eighth, Navarro and Paul 10th, Taylor Townsend and Alexander Zverev 16th, and Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper 18th. Further down are Reese Brantmeier and Michael Zheng at 21st, Caty McNally and Robert Cash at 28th, and the siblings Peyton and Preston Stearns at 29th. Fritz sits second alongside Rybakina.
Williams, 46, is by some distance the oldest player entered, and the pairing is the most unlikely on the list. She already holds singles and doubles wild cards into the Cincinnati Open, where she is set to partner her sister Serena in their first doubles appearance together since the 2022 US Open. Serena Williams does not appear on the mixed doubles entry list. Bublik, a Kazakh whose serve has carried him to a career high inside the top 15, has never played the event.
Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, winners of the last two editions, sit 23rd. Their position is the clearest illustration of why qualifying was added for 2026. They are among the most accomplished mixed teams in the sport, but the combined singles ranking that governs direct entry takes no account of doubles results, and they needed a wild card to defend their title a year ago. Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten, also multiple major doubles champions, are 24th.
The championship is played from Aug. 24 to 26 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, in the week before the singles main draw begins. Qualifying is held on the Monday, with the first round and quarterfinals on Tuesday and the semifinals and final on Wednesday. Matches through the semifinals are best-of-three with sets shortened to four games, no-advantage scoring and a tiebreak at four-all, with a 10-point match tiebreak in place of a third set. The final is played to six games a set. The winning pair takes $1 million.
The eight wild cards will decide how much of this list actually reaches Arthur Ashe Stadium. Until they are announced, only the top six teams have anything approaching a guarantee, and that guarantee lasts only as long as the rankings underneath it hold.
