Serena Williams came back to the U.S. Open on Tuesday and did it in mixed doubles, pairing with Carlos Alcaraz for her first match at the Grand Slam tournament since 2022. The 44-year-old, who returned to tennis earlier this year, was back on the court in a format that put her alongside one of the sport’s biggest current names.
Williams and Alcaraz were set to face Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool in the first round later Tuesday, with the mixed doubles first round and quarterfinals on the schedule before the semifinals and final on Wednesday night. The event’s winner will receive $1 million, a prize that gives the competition extra weight even with the field built around star names.
That return matters because Williams was not planning to play singles at the U.S. Open, making mixed doubles the stage for her comeback at the tournament. She has 10 U.S. Open championships, including six women’s singles titles, two women’s doubles titles with Venus and one mixed doubles title with Max Mirnyi in 1998, so her latest appearance carried the feel of a familiar homecoming rather than a full-scale return to the draw.
The format also helps explain why the matchup drew attention. This is the second year of the mixed doubles event in a new look, and the field also included Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic, underscoring how the competition has been built to attract major names rather than only specialists. Carlos Alcaraz has already won the men’s singles tournament twice, which made the pairing with Williams one of the tournament’s most watched combinations.
What happens next is simple and immediate: the first round and quarterfinals were set for Tuesday, and the semifinals and final were scheduled for Wednesday night. If the new format was meant to turn mixed doubles into a marquee stop on the U.S. Open calendar, Williams’ return was the kind of moment designed to prove it.
