Serena Williams Returns to US Open With Carlos Alcaraz in Blockbuster Mixed Doubles Partnership

Serena Williams returns to the US Open on Tuesday for her first appearance at Flushing Meadows since 2022, partnering Carlos Alcaraz against doubles specialists Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool in one of the headline matches of the 2026 US Open Mixed Doubles Championship.

Four years after Williams walked away from Arthur Ashe Stadium with what many believed would be her final US Open appearance, the 23-time Grand Slam singles champion is back in New York with a partner from an entirely different tennis generation.

Williams, 44, and Alcaraz received a wild card into the 16-team mixed doubles main draw and will begin against Routliffe and Glasspool, who survived two demanding qualifying matches on Monday to earn their place.

The partnership immediately creates one of the most unusual storylines of US Open Fan Week: one of the greatest players in tennis history returning to the tournament where she won nine titles across singles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles, alongside a player who has become one of the defining figures of the current men’s game.

The official US Open announcement confirmed Williams and Alcaraz as wild-card entrants and placed them in a field filled with major champions, world No. 1s and established doubles specialists.

For The Sports Encounter, the real question is not whether the partnership attracts attention. That part was guaranteed the moment the draw was announced. The more interesting question is whether two extraordinary singles players can adapt quickly enough to a compressed doubles format against opponents whose careers have been built around the discipline.

Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz at US Open 2026: Key Facts

Detail	Information
Competition	2026 US Open Mixed Doubles Championship
Round	First Round
Team	Serena Williams / Carlos Alcaraz
Opponents	Erin Routliffe / Lloyd Glasspool
Entry	Williams / Alcaraz received a wild card
Opponent entry	Routliffe / Glasspool qualified on August 24
Venue	USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, New York
First round and quarterfinals	August 25
Semifinals and final	August 26
Championship prize	$1 million
Serena’s last US Open appearance	2022
Serena’s previous US Open mixed doubles title	1998 with Max Mirnyi

Serena Williams Is Returning to a Tournament That Once Looked Like Her Farewell

The setting gives this comeback considerably more meaning than an ordinary wild-card appearance.

Williams last competed at the US Open in 2022, when her run ended in the third round and the tournament became the stage for an emotional departure from professional tennis.

For several years, that appeared to be the final chapter.

Her 2026 comeback changed the picture.

Williams returned to competition in June and has gradually rebuilt her schedule rather than attempting an immediate full-time return. She has played doubles, returned to Grand Slam competition at Wimbledon and recently reunited with Venus Williams in Cincinnati.

The Sports Encounter followed that latest step when Serena and Venus Williams played doubles together in Cincinnati for the first time since the 2022 US Open.

They lost 2-6, 6-1, 10-8 to Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns, but the match mattered because it showed Serena continuing to expose herself to competitive tennis rather than treating her comeback as a sequence of ceremonial appearances.

New York is the next test.

This Is Serena’s First US Open Appearance in Four Years

The significance of the occasion can be measured by Williams’ history at Flushing Meadows.

She has won six US Open women’s singles championships, two women’s doubles titles and the 1998 mixed doubles crown with Max Mirnyi.

That gives her nine US Open titles across three disciplines.

A championship with Alcaraz would therefore become her 10th US Open trophy and her second in mixed doubles, arriving 28 years after the first.

The return also comes during a remarkable period for the Williams family. Venus Williams has received another opportunity in New York at age 46, a story The Sports Encounter explored in our report on Venus Williams receiving a 2026 US Open wild card.

Their situations are different, but together they have turned the Williams name into an active competitive storyline again rather than purely part of US Open history.

Alcaraz Gives Serena a Partner With Elite Singles Firepower

Carlos Alcaraz brings an entirely different type of pressure to the partnership.

His game is built around explosive movement, improvisation, heavy groundstrokes and the ability to turn defensive positions into attacks within one shot.

Those qualities can be extremely useful in doubles, where reaction time is reduced and points often turn on the first aggressive move.

There is still an important distinction between being an exceptional singles player and an exceptional doubles player.

Alcaraz has considerably less mixed doubles experience than Williams. His previous Grand Slam mixed doubles appearance came at the 2025 US Open, when he partnered Emma Raducanu and lost in the opening round to Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper.

That history makes Tuesday’s match more tactically interesting.

Williams and Alcaraz possess enormous individual ability. Their opponents possess the more established doubles credentials.

Routliffe and Glasspool Are Much More Dangerous Than the Celebrity Narrative Suggests

It would be easy to frame this entirely around Serena and Alcaraz.

That would miss the competitive problem standing across the net.

Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool came through the new mixed doubles qualifying competition on Monday, and neither qualification match was routine.

They defeated Luisa Stefani and Neal Skupski 4-1, 3-5, 10-7 before surviving Kristina Mladenovic and Marcelo Arevalo 5-4(4), 2-4, 11-9.

The official US Open qualifying report confirmed that Routliffe and Glasspool needed deciding match tiebreaks in both rounds.

That experience could matter immediately.

They have already played two competitive matches under the tournament’s unusual scoring system. Williams and Alcaraz enter without that same match repetition as a team.

Celebrity makes Williams and Alcaraz the headline pairing.

Doubles familiarity may make Routliffe and Glasspool the more comfortable pairing when the first few points begin moving quickly.

TSE Analysis: The First Four Games Could Decide Much More Than Usual

The tournament format changes the strategic value of every early mistake.

From qualifying through the semifinals, sets are played to four games instead of six, with no-ad scoring and a tiebreak at 4-4. If teams split the opening two sets, a 10-point match tiebreak decides the winner.

The final returns to six-game sets while retaining no-ad scoring and a deciding 10-point tiebreak instead of a conventional third set.

The official US Open mixed doubles championship guide confirms the format and the compressed August 24-26 schedule.

For Williams and Alcaraz, the shortened sets remove one of the luxuries great singles players normally possess: time to understand an opponent.

Lose serve early and a set can disappear almost immediately.

Miss two return opportunities and there may not be enough games remaining to create another opening.

That increases the value of doubles instincts, first volleys, return positioning and communication.

Williams has decades of experience reading those situations.

Alcaraz has to adapt quickly.

Serena’s Serve May Still Be the Partnership’s Most Important Weapon

Much of the attention will naturally fall on Alcaraz’s speed and power, but Williams’ serve could determine whether the partnership settles into the match.

Even late in her career, Serena’s service motion remains one of the great technical foundations in women’s tennis.

Mixed doubles can expose a weaker serve brutally because the opposing male player can attack returns from inside the baseline.

Williams historically avoided that problem through accuracy, disguise and placement rather than relying solely on speed.

If she can consistently start points on favorable terms, Alcaraz becomes considerably more dangerous at the net.

The opposite is also true.

If Routliffe and Glasspool force Williams into repeated second serves, the physical and reaction demands will rise immediately.

Alcaraz’s Net Positioning Could Become the Hidden Variable

Alcaraz has enough athletic ability to cover huge amounts of court, but mixed doubles will test his positional discipline differently from singles.

At the net, raw speed does not compensate for every poor decision.

Knowing when to cross, when to hold position, when to leave a ball for a partner and how aggressively to close toward the center can determine points before athleticism becomes relevant.

Williams has spent much more of her career working within those patterns.

The partnership therefore creates an unusual leadership dynamic.

Alcaraz may be one of the dominant players of the current men’s era, but Williams carries the deeper doubles vocabulary.

That may make communication between points as important as anything they produce with the racket.

The US Open Has Turned Mixed Doubles Into a Showcase Event

The partnership also reflects the US Open’s attempt to dramatically increase the visibility of mixed doubles.

The reimagined championship now takes place during Fan Week before the singles main draw begins, concentrating a field of recognizable stars into a short competition staged largely inside Arthur Ashe Stadium and Louis Armstrong Stadium.

The 16-team main draw includes combinations featuring Novak Djokovic, Aryna Sabalenka, Jessica Pegula, Taylor Fritz, Iga Swiatek, Casper Ruud, Alexander Zverev and several accomplished doubles players.

The Sports Encounter’s complete US Open 2026 preview identified mixed doubles as one of the tournament’s important Fan Week storylines long before Williams and Alcaraz were added to the field.

Their wild card has increased the attention considerably.

A $1 Million Prize Changes the Competitive Tone

The champions will receive $1 million, while the runners-up earn $500,000.

That prize structure reinforces the US Open’s attempt to turn mixed doubles into a premium event rather than a side competition operating quietly around singles schedules.

More importantly, the compressed format gives players very little recovery time.

The first round and quarterfinals are scheduled for Tuesday.

The semifinals and final follow Wednesday night.

A team can therefore move from an opening-round experiment to playing for a Grand Slam championship in little more than 24 hours.

That is why Williams and Alcaraz cannot treat Routliffe and Glasspool as a warm-up.

There is no warm-up round in this format.

The Draw Could Produce Serena and Alcaraz vs Sabalenka and Djokovic

The tournament bracket adds another layer.

Williams and Alcaraz are in the top half of the draw, where a semifinal meeting with Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic was possible when the bracket was released.

That potential matchup helped explain the attention surrounding the competition before a ball was played.

Djokovic enters New York with his own questions after a difficult Cincinnati return. The Sports Encounter examined those concerns after Djokovic’s Cincinnati defeat raised fresh US Open fitness questions.

His situation is part of a much broader men’s tournament picture that remains unusually fluid before singles play begins.

US Open Preparation Has Been Far From Straightforward for the Leading Men

New York is arriving after a North American hard-court swing filled with injuries, upsets and rapidly changing form.

Jannik Sinner’s preparation was interrupted when a knee problem forced him to withdraw from Cincinnati, a development covered in The Sports Encounter’s report on Sinner’s Cincinnati withdrawal and US Open uncertainty.

Taylor Fritz strengthened his own case earlier in the swing by winning Washington. Our report on Fritz’s Mubadala DC Open title examined why his hard-court form matters heading toward New York.

Canada then added another set of questions, which The Sports Encounter tracked through our National Bank Open 2026 guide.

Mixed doubles sits outside the men’s singles championship, but it gives Alcaraz competitive exposure to Arthur Ashe Stadium conditions before the main event begins.

Serena’s 2026 Comeback Has Already Crossed Several Different Tests

There is a tendency to evaluate every Serena appearance against the impossible standard of the player who dominated women’s tennis for more than two decades.

That is no longer the most useful measurement.

At 44, the meaningful questions concern movement, recovery, timing, competitive instincts and whether she can still find enough high-level tennis inside shorter windows.

Her comeback has already taken her through grass-court tennis, Grand Slam competition and doubles alongside Venus.

The Sports Encounter’s Wimbledon 2026 curtain-raiser framed the extraordinary generational landscape Serena returned to this summer, where players from different eras suddenly occupied the same tournament again.

That generational contrast is even more visible beside Alcaraz.

Mixed Doubles Gives Serena a Different Path Than Singles

Doubles reduces some of the court coverage demanded by singles but increases the importance of reactions, positioning and coordination.

That tradeoff may suit Williams at this stage of her comeback.

She does not have to defend the entire baseline for two or three hours.

She does have to process points extremely quickly at the net and protect her service games inside a shortened scoring format.

Her Wimbledon experience also showed how complicated comeback management can become. The Sports Encounter noted Serena’s withdrawal from doubles during Wimbledon 2026 as part of a chaotic tournament day.

That makes workload management another factor worth watching in New York.

Grand Slam Mixed Doubles Has Produced Major Stories Already in 2026

The discipline has enjoyed several meaningful moments this season.

At Wimbledon, Jelena Ostapenko and Marcelo Arevalo came from behind to win the mixed doubles championship, a result The Sports Encounter covered in our report on Ostapenko and Arevalo’s Wimbledon mixed doubles triumph.

The US Open has chosen a dramatically different presentation model, but the sporting problem remains the same.

Two players with different instincts and tactical responsibilities must become a functioning team almost immediately.

That is what makes Williams and Alcaraz fascinating beyond the names.

What Happens If Serena and Alcaraz Win?

The format moves quickly.

A first-round victory would send Williams and Alcaraz directly into Tuesday’s quarterfinals.

From there, one more win would put them into Wednesday night’s semifinals at Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Two victories on Wednesday would complete one of the most extraordinary possible endings to this comeback chapter: Serena Williams becoming a US Open champion again 28 years after her first mixed doubles title.

That outcome remains several difficult matches away.

Routliffe and Glasspool are the first reason not to look too far ahead.

TSE Verdict: The Names Make the Match Huge, the Format Makes It Dangerous

Serena Williams returning to the US Open beside Carlos Alcaraz is enough to make this one of Tuesday’s most watched tennis matches.

The sporting challenge is what makes it worth following closely.

Williams and Alcaraz bring overwhelming singles pedigree, elite shot-making and the ability to change points from seemingly defensive positions.

Routliffe and Glasspool bring recent matches under the exact format, deeper doubles familiarity and considerably more experience making rapid positional decisions as a partnership.

The short sets reduce the margin for experimentation.

There may not be enough time for Williams and Alcaraz to spend several games discovering what works.

They have to arrive with answers.

That tension gives Serena’s return something better than nostalgia.

It gives it competitive uncertainty.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Serena Williams playing with at the 2026 US Open?

Serena Williams is partnering Carlos Alcaraz in the 2026 US Open Mixed Doubles Championship.

Who will Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz play first?

They face Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool, who qualified for the main draw by winning two matches on August 24.

Is Serena Williams playing singles at the 2026 US Open?

Her confirmed US Open appearance discussed here is in the mixed doubles championship alongside Alcaraz.

When did Serena Williams last play at the US Open?

Williams last competed at Flushing Meadows in 2022 before returning for the 2026 mixed doubles event.

Has Serena Williams won the US Open mixed doubles title before?

Yes. Williams won the 1998 US Open mixed doubles championship with Max Mirnyi.

How many US Open titles has Serena Williams won?

Williams has won nine US Open championships across disciplines: six women’s singles titles, two women’s doubles titles and one mixed doubles title.

What is the US Open mixed doubles prize money?

The 2026 champions will receive $1 million, while the runners-up earn $500,000.

What is the 2026 US Open mixed doubles format?

From qualifying through the semifinals, sets are played to four games with no-ad scoring and a 10-point match tiebreak replacing a third set. The final uses conventional six-game sets with no-ad scoring and a 10-point deciding tiebreak.

When is the US Open mixed doubles final?

The semifinals and championship match are scheduled for Wednesday, August 26 at Arthur Ashe Stadium.