Sabalenka and Djokovic Top the US Open Mixed Doubles — and the World No. 1 Wanted It That Way

Aryna Sabalenka did not need another reason to be watched at Flushing Meadows. She is the woman every other player in the draw is chasing, the name at the top of the singles field, the champion defending everything she has built at this tournament. And still, when the US Open opened the door to its reinvented mixed doubles, she walked straight through it — and brought the most decorated man in the sport with her.

That is the tell. A player protecting a legacy hoards her energy; she narrows her world to one trophy and refuses every distraction. Sabalenka did the opposite. She looked at a fortnight already heavy with expectation and decided she wanted more court, more noise, more of the biggest room in tennis — not less. The partnership with Novak Djokovic is the headline. The appetite behind it is the story.

The pairing tops the list of teams entered into the revamped championship, an event the US Open rebuilt into a star-driven showcase staged around the edges of the singles draw. Entry is decided by combined singles ranking, and there is no combination on the planet that outranks the world No. 1 woman standing beside a 24-time Grand Slam champion. Around them sits a field thick with marquee names — Iga Swiatek with Casper Ruud, Elena Rybakina with Taylor Fritz, Naomi Osaka with Kei Nishikori, Jessica Pegula with Jack Draper.

Topping that list, though, is not the same as being favoured to win it, and Sabalenka knows the difference better than most. The format seats the biggest names at the top by ranking and by fame, not by doubles craft — and last year the craft won. Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, specialists who live at the net, took the title over Swiatek and Ruud. That is the lesson of the reboot: the stars can be caught. A great singles ranking buys you the top line of the entry sheet. It does not buy you the reflexes and the angles that decide a scramble at the net.

What makes the Sabalenka–Djokovic team compelling is that it fuses two versions of the same trait. She is the most fearless ball-striker in the women’s game, a player who answers pressure by hitting through it rather than around it. He has spent a career bending matches to his will long after they looked lost. Put two front-runners on one side of the net and you get firepower; whether you also get the patience and the soft hands the format rewards is the question the tournament exists to ask.

The US Open overhauled the event to draw exactly this — crowds, cameras, and singles stars trading the baseline grind for a weekend of theatre, with a seven-figure top prize and, last year, a near-sellout of Arthur Ashe. Not everyone bought in. Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz entered the singles only; Coco Gauff passed. Sabalenka’s yes, against that backdrop, reads as a statement about how she sees herself: not a champion guarding a lead, but a competitor who wants the ball in the biggest moments she can find.

The singles remains the prize that would define her. No woman has won three straight titles at this tournament since Serena Williams, and that is the mission; the mixed doubles is the flourish. The two top-ranked teams and a clutch of wild cards fill most of the compact bracket, with a short qualifying round completing it. The matches are trimmed to fit — shortened sets, a match tie-break in place of a third — a design built for stars with a singles title to save themselves for.

If she wins it, Sabalenka pockets a trophy nobody asked her to chase. If she goes out early, she loses nothing that matters. That asymmetry is the whole point — and reaching for it anyway, in the middle of the biggest job on her calendar, is exactly the move a player this sure of herself makes without blinking.

Tags: tennis, Novak Djokovic, take-review, Aryna Sabalenka, mixed doubles, US Open