Alcaraz and Serena Williams delight crowds in US Open mixed doubles return

Carlos Alcaraz returned to competitive tennis for the first time since April, when a wrist injury sidelined him, by teaming up with Serena Williams in the US Open's mixed doubles event. It marked Williams' first appearance in New York since she stepped away from the sport in 2022.

The pair opened with a convincing 5-3, 4-1 win over Britain's Lloyd Glasspool and New Zealand's Erin Routliffe, drawing roughly 15,000 spectators to a lively Arthur Ashe Stadium. Their run ended in the quarter-finals, where they lost to Italy's Flavio Cobolli and Switzerland's Belinda Bencic.

Alcaraz admitted to feeling nervous ahead of the match, partly because of playing alongside a six-time US Open singles champion, and said he had almost forgotten what it felt like to compete after nearly five months out. He credited Williams with helping him settle into the match quickly.

Williams, 44, who previously won the US Open mixed doubles title with Max Mirnyi back in 1998, said she never expected to play on Arthur Ashe Stadium again and called the experience a special moment.

The tournament's revamped mixed doubles format, introduced last year, grants top singles players direct entry into the main draw while dedicated doubles specialists must go through qualifying rounds. The change has drawn criticism for favouring singles stars, and on the opening day all four pure doubles pairings lost to teams featuring singles players.

Elsewhere in the event, Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka suffered an early exit at the hands of Henry Patten and Katerina Siniakova. The semi-finals will feature Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina against Cobolli and Bencic, and Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev against Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik.