Is US Open's new mixed doubles a threat to the format's future?

No more mixed doubles as usual After plenty of debate and some late pull-outs, the revamped US Open mixed doubles standalone event will begin on Tuesday. All you need to know:

- Rutvick Mehta

The year's last Grand Slam begins this week with an unconventional first. Mixed doubles as a format in tennis is more than a century old, which the US Open has shaken up through a revamped standalone event starting Tuesday.

It largely features top singles stars, with a handful of doubles specialists thrown in to make up the 16-team, two-day, shorter format spectacle. The traditional mixed doubles, a third wheel to the two doubles events at Slams, has been given the boot.

From the time this radical move was announced in February, the debate has been about sidelining an entire event and set of players. Reigning US Open mixed doubles champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who have since been handed a wildcard in the singles-driven field, termed it “profound injustice”.

Locker room chatter around this appears heading into the innovative unknown.

"Most of the chat has been about uncertaintyif this can happen at one Slam, where does it stop?" Rohan Bopanna, India's 2024 Australian Open men's doubles champion who has played doubles with and against top singles players over a two-decade long pro career, told HT from the US.