The US Open kicks off with mixed doubles: shortened format and a wild card for Errani and Vavassori

The morning Sports section closed out coverage of swimming at the Mediterranean Games. In the afternoon the focus shifts to New York, to a tournament the 6:30 edition did not cover, which began on Monday.

Dates and venue

The 2026 US Open is being played from August 25 to September 13 on the hard courts of the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, according to the official schedule reported by Olympics.com.

For the second year in a row, the opening has not been entrusted to the singles draws but to the mixed doubles tournament, played over two days in a shortened format.

What changes with the reduced format

The rules applied to the mixed event, reported by Sky Sport on the tournament regulations, substantially compress the length of matches: sets up to four games, with the third set replaced by a ten-point tie-break.

On August 25 the fourth round and quarterfinals were played: two rounds in a single day, which under traditional scoring would take up an entire weekend.

The practical effect of such a short format is familiar to anyone who has watched a tie-break: it reduces the weight of consistency and increases that of individual moments. A set to four games is decided by a handful of points, and the gap between pairs of different levels narrows. The result of the third-round match between Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina on one side and Felix Auger-Aliassime and Alexandra Eala on the other — 4-1, 4-1, according to official results reported by the Associated Press via AOL — nonetheless also shows the flip side: when a technical gap manifests immediately, the match is over in a few minutes.

The Italians

Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, the defending champions and winners of the 2026 Roland Garros, received a wild card into the mixed doubles main draw. This is an organizational choice worth noting: the defending champions of an event enter the draw by decision of the tournament, not by ranking, which says something about how mixed doubles remains a separate competition within the Grand Slam entry system.

Jannik Sinner is not taking part in the tournament: according to the official schedule reported by Olympics.com, the absence is due to an injury.

In the men’s qualifying, three Italians advanced past the first round — Francesco Passaro, Andrea Guerrieri and Marco Cecchinato — as reported by Corriere dello Sport on the official results. Qualifying is the part of the tournament that almost never makes it onto television and that determines the composition of the last quarter of the main draw.

What we don’t know

The winners of the mixed doubles tournament are not yet known in the sources consulted, nor are the full results of qualifying beyond the rounds mentioned. The precise schedule of the first rounds of the singles events is not known, nor is the full composition of the draws.

The next verifiable milestones are the awarding of the mixed doubles title at the end of the two days of competition and the conclusion of the qualifying draws, which will complete the entries into the main draw. The tournament ends on September 13.