The U.S. Open is shooting itself in the foot — Qatar TotalEnergies Open quotes

The USTA has decided to reimagine and elevate the focus on the Mixed Doubles tournament by moving it to the first week of the US Open, during Fan Week. This means that it will now take place on August 19-20, giving it a prime spot on the calendar and allowing it to shine without competing with the main draw of singles play. One of the most significant changes is that the event will only be played in Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium, the two biggest stages at the US Open. This move also comes with a substantial increase in prize money, with the winners taking home a $1 million prize.

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I’ll start with the good. I actually am very intrigued about the move into the tournament’s Fan Week. As someone who’s gone during qualifying, I personally do think the U.S. Open could add more to it to entice fans coming to watch. To be honest, you can only see top players practicing and qualifying matches for so long and while they include Arthur Ashe Kid’s Day, there’s six other days of the week. That being said, that’s about as good as it gets.

The USTA is completely gutting mixed doubles and making it a mockery, seemingly for television revenue. It’s one thing to halve the draw from 32 teams to 16, but half of those teams off of singles ranking and the other one wildcards? Games to four sets? These changes could potentially marginalize specialist doubles players who have traditionally excelled in this category.

Doubles specialists have rightfully voiced their concerns. For instance, the reigning champions, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, took to social media to share their displeasure of the USTA ignoring tradition:

Perhaps I’m a traditionalist, but I also know that the majority of tennis fans play doubles/mixed doubles at home. I’ve mentioned before, but the sport needs to embrace doubles a lot more. Lets be honest, the reason why the USTA is making these changes is because they see no value in doubles players or that side of the sport. However, the sport itself does nothing to promote these players, so we’re constantly in this same cycle. Why are we overanalyzing the sport and underutilizing our players!?

If I were in charge, I would have used the tail end of Fan Week to begin the mixed doubles draw and have it end by the halfway point of the entire tournament. On the other end of that coin, with singles being the priority, it’s tough to say if that could either happen. Having it during Fan Week is fine, but keep the normal scoring, have your 32 teams AND USE DOUBLES RANKINGS/PLAYERS. I’m sick of singles players taking away spots and money from doubles specialists, only for them to withdraw after one match. How is that fair to fellow players and showcasing how deep women’s tennis is? Maybe that’s another tangent I can go on a different week.

Until then, on to links!

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This Week in Women’s Tennis

The Stefano Vukov-Elena Rybakina saga, unfortunately, seems far from over and the details starting to emerge from the case are more than concerning. Rybakina has also spoken out about the lack of support she’s seen from the locker room.

After years of promise, struggles and burnout, Amanda Anisimova won the biggest title of her career at the Qatar TotalEnergies Open by defeating Jelena Ostapenko in the championship. Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini captured their third WTA 1000 trophy as a duo by ousting Jiang Xinyu and Wu Fang-Hsien.

Emiliana Arango won her first WTA 125 at the Cancun Tennis Open, defeating an ill Carson Branstine in the singles final. The doubles final was won by Maya Joint and Taylah Preston over Aliona Bolsova and Yvonne Cavallé-Reimers.

Storm Hunter will be making her return to tennis at Austin next week following a near-year-long recovery from a ruptured Achilles.

Apparently even though the WTA tournament is a 1000, WTA players are still treated less than by their ATP 500 counterparts.

Sometimes, all it takes is one match for a player to turn their career. For Jasmine Paolini, it was in Dubai last year.

Though she’s starting to take pickleball by storm, Eugenie Bouchard apparently still has tennis in her sights.

Aryna Sabalenka is open to playing mixed doubles at the U.S. Open but also teased a Nike logo dedicated to the World No. 1.

The turnaround from Doha to Dubai is excruciating and both finalists Amanda Anisimova and Jelena Ostapenko learned the hard way.

Congratulations to Angelique Kerber, who announced her second pregnancy after retiring at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The Ons Jabeur candle scent is…..interesting.

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Tweet of the Week

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Five at the IX: Qatar TotalEnergies Open

Q. Yesterday you talked about how hard you are training the end of the last year, the off-season. So physically it has been kind of tough week for you, but what kind of things do you think paid off the most, like physical training, physical strength, or mental toughness, or which one do you think it is?

AMANDA ANISIMOVA: I think I did a lot of hard work in the pre-season, for sure, that has probably been paying off this week. As I said, I didn’t spend too much time on the court and training the few weeks prior to this, so I spent a lot of time actually working on my mental side because that’s really all I was able to do. I think that really helped pay off because I really kept my composure this week and stayed tough in a lot of challenging moments. So I think both, yeah, the mental side and also all the physical hours that I was able to put in when I was healthy have really paid off, but I think it’s definitely a combination of the two.

Q. It’s your second final after nine years here. If you had to compare Jelena from 2016 and Jelena from now, which would be the conclusion?

JELENA OSTAPENKO: I think honestly now I’m a better player, and mentally as well. At that time I was probably fearless, but I didn’t have that much experience. I think now I have way more experience, and getting like a bit older and more mature I think is going to help me.

Q. We are talking about how you have been dominating in this tournament, but also you have most successful stats in like reaching to the semifinal of WTA 1000 tournaments, so what do you think about being this consistent in that kind of highest level?

IGA SWIATEK: Well, I’m happy because this is what I work for, and it’s always nice to kind of remind yourself about the stats a little bit and, I don’t know, just appreciate how much work we’ve put over the years to achieve something like that.

Consistency has always been something that I wanted to achieve, you know, and there’s no match I take for granted, I want to win every each of them. I’m happy that I’m able to stay healthy, bring super-high intensity on every tournament to have these kind of achievements, because with every semifinal there’s a bigger chance of winning this tournament, so I’m happy that I can keep my focus just doing everything step by step and have these achievements.

Q. Of course we all know that the age is just a number, but with all respect, maybe you are a little bit kind of like a late bloomer or something. I would say that, you know, your best result comes recently, so is any, you know, secret, or is this easy for you to believe that you can make the best result that would come in the future?

EKATERINA ALEXANDROVA: I think it’s hard to tell because every week is different, and you play, I don’t know, you can play different every single week. One week you play amazing, and the next week you don’t feel it, and it’s just like changing so fast.

So, the only thing is you just try to do your best to adapt to every tournament. Yeah, I think, like the winning title in Linz, and be here in the semifinal, it’s amazing result for me, but I’m always hoping for the best, and I’m hoping that I can go further through the tournaments, and maybe not just like the semifinals, but of course I’m hoping for the finals and for the titles. I’m trying to do that every single tournament, sometimes it’s working, sometimes it’s not, so you need to accept that and just try to stay positive.

I don’t know, every week is different, so you need to be patient, and every week try to do your best.

Q. I was talking to a few fans who came out to support you, and the common sentiment was that you were back to your best finally, and you also sort of said before the tournament that you feel a lot better than where you were around this time last year. Has that hope turned into belief, or is it a bit too early to call?

ONS JABEUR: To be honest with you, I try not to look at the past as much as, you know, be in the present right now. If I say I want to be the same player that I was last year, or basically two years ago, the tennis has evolved and has changed a lot, and I feel like I try to improve a lot of things in my game, and that definitely is the case.

For me, right now I’m a better version of myself, I’m evolving, and I’m getting better on and off the court, and that’s something that I’m looking more forward to. I feel like the results or anything else will follow, if I am a better player on the court the results will follow, and the ranking as well.