Four-time US Open champion brands event an 'exhibition' after drastic overhaul - EXCLUSIVE

The brand new US Open mixed doubles event gets underway on Tuesday, with blockbuster matches including Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz vs Jack Draper and Jessica Pegula. The tournament has received a complete overhaul - only 16 teams have made the cut, with entries based on singles rankings. A condensed scoring format will be used until the finals, and there is £740k ($1million) in prize money up for grabs.

While the revamped event has thrown up some exciting partnerships, it's also caused controversy. Very few doubles specialists have been given wildcards into the draw, and British doubles sensation Joe Salisbury, who has four US Open titles to his name, told Express Sport that the mixed competition now "feels like an exhibition", rather than a Grand Slam tournament in its own right.

Salisbury lifted three US Open men's doubles trophies on the trot with old partner Rajeev Ram from 2021 to 2023, and he was crowned the mixed doubles champion in 2021 alongside Desirae Krawczyk.

But the Brit, who currently sits at No. 15 in the ATP doubles rankings, won't feature in the mixed doubles event this year. Last year's champions, Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, are the only team of doubles specialists in action, getting a wildcard.

WTA doubles Nos. 1 and 2, Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova, are also competing, but only because they've joined forces with top singles players in Ben Shelton and Jannik Sinner, though it remains to be seen whether Sinner can take to the court with Siniakova after his Cincinnati Open retirement. There are no top-10 doubles players on the ATP side playing in the updated event.

Although the shortened, two-day format has allowed top singles players to compete before the main draws get underway on Sunday, former world No. 1 Salisbury says the mixed doubles now feels like an unofficial tournament, and shouldn't count as a Major title.

"It doesn't really feel like... like a proper mixed doubles event," the Brit told Express Sport a few weeks before the tournament line-up was finalised. "It seems like just kind of an exhibition, which I'm sure will be very popular with the fans, but it kind of just feels like an exhibition, especially because it's the week before.

"They're playing 16 draw, and they're playing first to four games. Yeah, I mean, it's not really [a Grand Slam]. And I think, obviously, they've increased the prize money a lot. It feels a bit more just like an exhibition for the prize money rather than [a Grand Slam].

"For me, I don't think that the players that are in it are really going to care about the fact that winning a mixed doubles Grand Slam, it's just they're going to do it for a bit of fun and it's some extra prize money."

Salisbury, who confirmed that doubles players hadn't been consulted about the dramatic changes to the tournament, also suggested that doubles players had been stripped of an opportunity to compete.

He added: "Obviously, we're not in it, so we're just gonna have our men's and women's [doubles]. It doesn't bother me too much, but yeah, it feels like it's not really - it feels like they've kind of basically taken away the mixed doubles event. And now they've just got an exhibition the week before."

Salisbury isn't the only doubles player unhappy with the tournament's drastic overhaul. Earlier this year, reigning champions Errani and Vavassori accused the organisers of "disrespecting players," even though they were given a wildcard to defend their title.

In a joint statement, the Italians said it was: "a decision made without consulting anyone, which we can do nothing but accept it. We see it as a profound injustice, that disrespects an entire category of players. [Putting] money above tennis is never a good idea."

Even Pegula, who will team up with Draper, admitted that tournament bosses should have consulted with doubles players. "How they went about it, I didn't think was really great. We were like, 'Okay, you guys just went rogue and changed the format and didn't tell anybody. You just kind of did it'," she said.

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