Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz start US Open mixed doubles vs. team with women's doubles champ

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NEW YORK (AP) — Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz will open the U.S. Open mixed doubles tournament against a team that features the reigning women's doubles champion.

Williams and Alcaraz will face Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool on Tuesday in the first round of the championship, which will be Williams' first match at the U.S. Open since 2022.

Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic might have an even tougher draw. The top seeds, based on having the lowest combined singles ranking in the 16-team field, face the team of Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten — who are the No. 1-ranked doubles players on their respective tours.

The first round and quarterfinals are Tuesday. The semifinals and final are Wednesday.

Williams and Alcaraz were drawn to face one of the teams that emerged from the qualifying tournament that was held Monday. That ended up being Routliffe and Glasspool, who won two matches, both requiring match tiebreakers, to secure their place in the main draw.

Routliffe teamed with Gabriela Dabrowski to beat Siniakova and Taylor Townsend for last year's U.S. Open women's doubles title. They also won the championship in 2023.

Sabalenka and Djokovic had been slated to play Leylah Fernandez and Frances Tiafoe. But Tiafoe withdrew from mixed doubles Monday after losing to Arthur Fils in the Cincinnati Open final on Sunday, opening the door for a team that lost in qualifying to nevertheless earn a spot.

Siniakova and Patten won both their matches to reach the main draw. Kristina Mladenovic and Marcelo Arevalo, who lost to Routliffe and Glasspool in their second match, got the remaining spot and will play Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik.

The eight-team qualifying tournament was added this year to give the traditional doubles specialists an opportunity to compete for the U.S. Open title. When the tournament was overhauled last year — with a $1 million prize for the winners — in an effort to get top singles players to compete, direct entry was based on singles rankings, essentially shutting out the players who largely focus on doubles.

Williams is not planning to play singles in New York. Alcaraz, who has been sidelined since April with a right wrist injury, will return to defend his singles title.

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