US Open Mixed Doubles Plays First Round and Quarter-finals on Tuesday With a Million Dollars on the Line
Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz open against a qualifying pair as the revamped mixed doubles event compresses two rounds into Tuesday and finishes under lights on Wednesday at Arthur Ashe.
The US Open mixed doubles championship runs its first round and quarter-finals on Tuesday 25 August, with the semi-finals and final on Wednesday 26 August from 7pm at Arthur Ashe Stadium. The winners take one million dollars.
A two-day event, not a fortnight
The event sits in the week before the singles main draw and is played to a compressed format.
| Stage | Date | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Qualifying | 24 August | Sets to four games, 10-point tiebreak for a third |
| First round and quarters | 25 August | Sets to four games, 10-point tiebreak for a third |
| Semi-finals and final | 26 August | Final played as standard sets to six games |
Qualifying was played on Grandstand on Monday. ESPN2 has live coverage on Tuesday from 10am, with more matches on ESPN+, and returns for Wednesday night.
The pairings
Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz hold the headline wild card, granted on 22 August, and open against a team that came through qualifying. It is Williams' first competitive appearance at the US Open since 2022.
The rest of the field reads like a singles seeding list: Aryna Sabalenka with Novak Djokovic, Iga Swiatek with Casper Ruud, and Jessica Pegula back alongside Taylor Fritz after partner withdrawals reshuffled several teams.
Why the stars turned up
The scheduling and purse changes are the whole story. Moving the event into the pre-tournament week means singles players risk nothing in the main draw, the short sets keep matches under an hour, and a million-dollar cheque for two days of work is a rate no conventional doubles title matches.
Following it on Playdash
Playdash prices the mixed doubles outright, each round's match winner and set handicaps, with to-reach-the-final markets on every pairing. Singles outrights for both draws, quarter-by-quarter markets and round-of-elimination prices run through the main draw that follows, alongside in-play pricing on every televised court.
Schedule, format and pairings as published ahead of play. First-round results were not available at the time of writing on 25 August 2026.