Karolína Muchová and Jakub Menšík won the 2026 U.S. Open mixed doubles title late Wednesday night, beating Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 in a match tiebreak at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York. The Czech pair, given a last-minute wild-card entry, walked away with the $1 million first prize and their maiden Grand Slam titles.
The result mattered because this was not a routine mixed doubles field. The U.S. Open mixed doubles competition kept its Grand Slam status even as it moved away from tennis norms, and the draw had already included Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka on Day 1. By the time Muchová and Menšík finished, the clock was edging toward midnight and most of the 24,000-seat crowd had gone home, leaving a championship match to echo around an almost empty stadium.
The run to the title was just as sharp as the finish. Muchová and Menšík saved two match points in a semifinal-deciding tiebreak against Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev, then came back hours later to take the final. All four semifinal teams featured top singles players, the point of the reworked format, and the two semifinals plus the final lasted five hours in all.
There was no mistaking the oddity of the night, even for the winners. Muchová said her outfits made a difference, a light line that fit a match decided in part by nerve, timing and a format built to squeeze more star power into less time. In the other half of the draw, Elina Svitolina and Gaël Monfils fell to Bencic and Cobolli, while Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, who won the original mixed doubles title in 2024 and kept it last year, were part of the tournament’s recent history that the new setup was designed to break from.
For the U.S. Open, the first champions of 2026 are now set. The question left behind is not who won, but whether a mixed doubles final that crowns its winners after midnight, in front of a mostly empty Arthur Ashe Stadium, can keep proving that its new shape still works as a major.
