Married Tennis Stars Svitolina and Monfils Reach U.S. Open Mixed Doubles Semifinals/ TezzBuzz/ WASHINGTON/ J. Mansour/ Married couple Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils defeated the world’s top-ranked doubles players to reach the U.S. Open mixed doubles semifinals. They will face Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli, who eliminated Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz after the star pairing won its opening match.
Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev will meet Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik in the other semifinal, with $1 million awaiting the champions.
NEW YORK — Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils advanced to the U.S. Open mixed doubles semifinals Tuesday, giving the married tennis stars an opportunity to win a Grand Slam trophy together.
They edged Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten 5-4 (6), 4-5 (3), 10-8 to become the first team to reach the semifinals.
Siniakova and Patten entered as the No. 1-ranked players in women’s and men’s doubles, making Svitolina and Monfils’ victory particularly notable.
The couple celebrated with a hug and kiss on the court.
Svitolina and Monfils will face Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli in Wednesday’s semifinals.
Bencic and Cobolli advanced by defeating Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz 5-4 (4), 4-1.
Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev will meet Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik in the other semifinal.
The tournament champions will split a $1 million prize.
The potential payday would come during Monfils’ final Grand Slam tournament before he retires.
Williams and Alcaraz began the day with a 5-3, 4-1 victory over Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool.
The match marked Williams’ first appearance at the U.S. Open since 2022.
The 44-year-old Williams is a 23-time Grand Slam singles champion, while Alcaraz is a two-time U.S. Open singles champion.
They returned to the court shortly after their opening victory but appeared to lose energy after dropping the first-set tiebreaker against Bencic and Cobolli.
Williams and Alcaraz began their first-round match shortly after two-time defending champions Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori were eliminated.
Andreeva and Rublev saved a match point before beating the Italian pair 1-4, 4-1, 11-9.
The Russian duo then defeated Diana Shnaider and Casper Ruud 4-1, 4-5 (9), 10-5 despite failing to convert four match points in the second set.
Andreeva, 19, disclosed after the opening match that she once had a crush on Rublev, her 28-year-old partner.
Their victory assured that a new mixed doubles champion would be crowned.
Monfils reached the U.S. Open singles semifinals in 2016, while Svitolina advanced to the women’s final four in 2019.
Neither has won the tournament.
Monfils, who will turn 40 on Sept. 1, received a wild card into the men’s singles draw. He and Svitolina were also awarded a mixed doubles wild card.
The French and Ukrainian players married in 2021. Their daughter, Skaï, was born the following year.
Because they initially did not know whether they would receive a place in the mixed doubles field, Svitolina said they entered without significant preparation or expectations.
They opened the tournament by routing Alex Eala and Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-1, 4-1.
Muchova and Mensik advanced to the semifinals with a 4-1, 5-3 victory over Americans Emma Navarro and Tommy Paul.
The Czech players appeared in coordinated outfits featuring pink tops and maroon bottoms.
Mensik contacted Muchova on the eve of the tournament to coordinate their clothing.
They opened with a 4-1, 2-4, 10-7 victory over Kristina Mladenovic and Marcelo Arevalo.
Before losing to Svitolina and Monfils, Siniakova and Patten defeated top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic 1-4, 4-2, 10-2.
Siniakova ended the match by serving an ace against Djokovic.
Sabalenka, the two-time defending U.S. Open women’s singles champion, and Djokovic, a 24-time Grand Slam champion, received the No. 1 seed because they had the lowest combined singles ranking in the field.
Their defeat was not necessarily considered an upset because Siniakova and Patten are the top-ranked doubles players in the world.
The U.S. Open overhauled mixed doubles in 2025 to attract more prominent singles players.
Organizers moved the competition to a two-day period before the beginning of the singles main draw and introduced shortened scoring intended to produce quicker matches without exhausting participants.
The first three rounds feature sets to four games, with a tiebreaker at 4-all. A 10-point tiebreaker replaces the third set.
Only the final will resemble a regular match, with traditional sets played to six games.
The tournament modified its qualification rules again this year to allow more doubles specialists into the field.
In 2025, teams qualified based on combined singles rankings or received wild cards from the U.S. Tennis Association.
That system excluded most regular doubles players. Errani and Vavassori, the 2024 champions, received the only wild card given to doubles specialists and successfully defended their title.
This year, organizers added an eight-team qualifying tournament. It allowed two teams, composed primarily of doubles players, to earn places in the main draw.
Despite the change, singles players claimed most of the semifinal spots.
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