NEW YORK, United States, August 27, 2026: Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik ended Wednesday night holding the first championship trophy of the 2026 US Open, while only a few courts away Zheng Qinwen, Bianca Andreescu, Kei Nishikori, Grigor Dimitrov, Robin Montgomery and Coleman Wong were still fighting simply to get into the singles tournament.
That split screen defined August 26 at Flushing Meadows.
Arthur Ashe Stadium hosted the conclusion of the revamped US Open Mixed Doubles Championship, where Muchova and Mensik survived two pressure-filled matches in one evening before beating Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 1-6, [10-6] in the final.
Across the qualifying courts, established names and rising players moved within one victory of the 128-player singles main draws. Zheng beat Clara Burel 6-1, 7-5. Andreescu swept Veronika Podrez 6-0, 6-3. Nishikori beat Michael Antonius 6-4, 6-4, while Dimitrov edged Timofey Skatov 7-6(5), 6-4.
For readers following every stage of New York’s final Grand Slam, The Sports Encounter Tennis Hub brings together our US Open reporting, player features and tournament analysis.
US Open August 26, 2026 Results at a Glance
| Story | Result | What It Means |
|---|---|---|
| Mixed doubles final | Muchova/Mensik beat Bencic/Cobolli 6-3, 1-6, [10-6] | First Grand Slam title for both Czech players |
| Mixed doubles semifinal | Muchova/Mensik beat Andreeva/Rublev 5-4(6), 3-5, [11-9] | Czechs saved two match points |
| Mixed doubles semifinal | Bencic/Cobolli beat Svitolina/Monfils 4-5(7), 4-1, [10-5] | Ended Monfils and Svitolina’s run |
| Zheng Qinwen | Beat Clara Burel 6-1, 7-5 | Reached final qualifying round |
| Bianca Andreescu | Beat Veronika Podrez 6-0, 6-3 | One win from Grand Slam return |
| Robin Montgomery | Beat Jeline Vandromme 7-5, 6-3 | Advanced to final qualifying round |
| Coleman Wong | Beat Lukas Neumayer 6-3, 6-3 | One win from second straight US Open main draw |
| Grigor Dimitrov | Beat Timofey Skatov 7-6(5), 6-4 | Moved within one win of main draw |
| Kei Nishikori | Beat Michael Antonius 6-4, 6-4 | Farewell Grand Slam run remains alive |
Muchova and Mensik Turn One Night Into Their First Grand Slam Title
Muchova and Mensik entered Wednesday with no guarantee they would even reach the championship match.
They left Arthur Ashe Stadium with $1 million in prize money and the first Grand Slam trophies of their careers.
The route demanded considerably more than one strong final.
First came Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev.
Muchova and Mensik won an extremely tight opening set 5-4(6), lost the second 3-5 and then fell 7-9 behind in the deciding match tiebreak.
Two match points stood between the Czechs and elimination.
They erased both.
Four consecutive points turned 7-9 into an 11-9 victory and sent them into the final.
The sequence mattered because their championship was built less on sustained domination than on repeatedly winning the next point when there was almost no margin left.
Mensik’s Serve Gives the Czech Pair Their Escape Route
Mensik’s size and serve gave the partnership an obvious weapon, particularly when pressure compressed rallies into a handful of points.
Muchova complemented that power with touch, variety and confidence around the net.
After the semifinal, she said she felt “100% confident” moving forward behind Mensik’s serve.
The trust was understandable.
Mensik had already produced one of the strongest serving profiles on the ATP Tour, and the shortened mixed-doubles format magnified the value of free points.
The final demanded another reset almost immediately.
Bencic and Cobolli Push the Final Into a Deciding Tiebreak
Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli had already removed one of the tournament’s biggest attractions by beating Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz in the quarterfinals.
They reached Wednesday’s final by recovering from a set down against Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils.
Svitolina and Monfils took the semifinal opener 5-4(7), but Bencic and Cobolli responded 4-1 before controlling the match tiebreak 10-5.
The defeat closed another emotional chapter in Monfils’ final US Open journey alongside Svitolina.
In the championship match, Muchova and Mensik struck first.
The Czech team won the opening set 6-3, with Mensik again using his serve to control important points.
Bencic and Cobolli answered decisively.
They took the second set 6-1 and forced the championship into a 10-point tiebreak.
That was where Muchova and Mensik rediscovered the rhythm that had carried them through the semifinal.
They moved ahead early, protected the advantage and reached championship point before Mensik finished the tournament in the most appropriate way possible: with an ace.
Muchova and Mensik Become the US Open’s First Champions of 2026
The 6-3, 1-6, [10-6] win gave both players their first Grand Slam title in any discipline.
For Muchova, it came only weeks after the disappointment of finishing runner-up in the Wimbledon singles final.
For Mensik, it continued a summer in which his profile had already risen significantly through his singles results.
“I didn’t expect this before the tournament, but it’s such great fun,” Mensik said during the trophy ceremony.
That sentence captured part of what the redesigned competition was attempting to create.
The mixed doubles championship was positioned as a headline event during Fan Week, built around elite singles stars, compressed scoring and a significant prize purse.
Its first two days had already produced Serena’s return, Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka’s surprise first-round exit, and several partnerships assembled specifically for New York.
Muchova and Mensik were the pair left holding the trophy.
The Bigger Story Was Happening Beyond Arthur Ashe Stadium
The contrast around the grounds was difficult to miss.
One group of players was competing for a Grand Slam championship under the lights.
Another included former US Open finalists, a former US Open champion, an Olympic gold medalist and a former world No. 3 who still had to survive qualifying simply to enter the singles main draw.
That made August 26 unusually revealing.
Rankings, injuries and time away from competition had pushed names normally associated with the second week of majors into the preliminary rounds.
The qualifying draw therefore carried consequences well beyond the usual battle among players trying to break onto the main tour.
Zheng Qinwen Survives a Second-Set Warning From Clara Burel
Zheng Qinwen entered US Open qualifying in an unfamiliar position.
The former world No. 4 and Paris Olympic gold medalist had reached the US Open quarterfinals in both 2023 and 2024, but elbow problems disrupted her career and eventually sent her ranking outside the automatic main-draw places.
Her second-round qualifying match started as though the gap in pedigree would decide everything quickly.
Zheng took the first set 6-1 and moved ahead 3-1 in the second.
Then her serve became unreliable.
Double faults helped Burel back into the contest, and the Frenchwoman moved ahead 5-4.
Zheng was suddenly two points from being pushed into a deciding set.
She responded with the kind of forehand aggression that had once taken her into the world’s Top 5.
Zheng won the final three games and closed the match 6-1, 7-5.
The score looked comfortable.
The second set was anything but.
That distinction matters because qualifying was giving Zheng exactly what she probably needed after such a disrupted period: meaningful matches under pressure.
Bianca Andreescu Produces the Cleanest Statement of the Day
Bianca Andreescu’s relationship with the US Open hardly needs an introduction.
She won the tournament in 2019 by beating Serena Williams in the final.
Seven years later, injuries had changed the context completely.
Andreescu arrived in qualifying trying to earn her first Grand Slam main-draw appearance since the 2024 US Open.
Her second-round performance against Veronika Podrez suggested she was not interested in extending the suspense.
The Canadian won 6-0, 6-3.
Andreescu broke serve five times and controlled the match from the opening games, moving within one victory of returning to the New York main draw.
For a player whose career has repeatedly been interrupted by physical setbacks, the significance extended beyond one qualifying victory.
She was again playing meaningful tennis at the tournament where her career changed forever.
Robin Montgomery Moves Closer to Completing Her Comeback
Robin Montgomery also entered Wednesday carrying a comeback story.
The former US Open junior singles and doubles champion beat Jeline Vandromme 7-5, 6-3 to reach the final qualifying round.
Montgomery won five aces and converted three of eight break opportunities while losing serve only once.
Her path back has been anything but straightforward.
After reaching the WTA Top 100 in 2025, a wrist injury kept her out for nine months.
She returned in 2026 and won her first WTA title on grass at the Libema Open before qualifying for Wimbledon.
New York now offered another opportunity to turn recovery into tangible progress.
Kei Nishikori Keeps His Farewell Grand Slam Alive
Kei Nishikori’s qualifying campaign carried a different kind of urgency.
The former world No. 4 and 2014 US Open finalist had already announced that 2026 would be his final professional season.
Every qualifying match therefore carried the possibility of becoming his final appearance at a Grand Slam.
Sixteen-year-old American Michael Antonius was 20 years younger than Nishikori.
The experience gap showed.
Nishikori won 6-4, 6-4 and advanced to a final-round meeting with fellow Japanese player Rei Sakamoto.
It created one of the most compelling generational matchups of qualifying: one of Japanese tennis’ greatest players facing a 20-year-old trying to become part of its future.
Grigor Dimitrov Gets Within One Win of Familiar Territory
Grigor Dimitrov also found himself somewhere he had rarely needed to be during the strongest years of his career.
The former world No. 3 had reached the US Open semifinals in 2019 and the quarterfinals in 2024.
In 2026, he had to qualify.
Dimitrov beat Timofey Skatov 7-6(5), 6-4 in a match that demanded more patience than the scoreline might suggest.
He advanced to face Otto Virtanen for a place in the main draw.
The Bulgarian’s situation reinforced one of the defining themes of this year’s qualifying tournament.
Reputation could explain why fans filled the surrounding courts.
It could not give anybody a main-draw place.
Coleman Wong Continues to Build Hong Kong Tennis History
Coleman Wong faced a different pressure.
He had already experienced what qualifying could unlock.
Wong reached the third round of the 2025 US Open after coming through the preliminary draw, becoming the first Hong Kong man of the Open Era to play in a Grand Slam main draw.
On Wednesday, the second seed beat Lukas Neumayer 6-3, 6-3 without facing a break point.
Supporters from Hong Kong packed Court 11, and Wong moved within one victory of doing it again.
His next opponent would be Dusan Lajovic.
Fan Week Has Become Competitive Tennis, Not a Warm-Up Act
The US Open’s pre-main-draw week used to be easy to describe.
Qualifying happened on the outside courts. The biggest stars practiced. Fans wandered the grounds before the tournament proper began.
That description no longer fits.
The mixed doubles championship put Grand Slam silverware and $1 million on the line before the singles draws had even begun.
Serena Williams returned to competitive tennis alongside Alcaraz, a story TSE followed from their highly anticipated partnership through their opening victory.
Serena and Venus Williams then received another chance to reunite in women’s doubles, adding another chapter to one of the sport’s greatest partnerships.
At the same time, the singles qualifying courts contained Nishikori, Dimitrov, Zheng and Andreescu.
Wednesday therefore produced an unusual Grand Slam picture.
The tournament already had champions before many familiar names knew whether they would be part of its main singles field.
What August 26 Changed Ahead of the Main Draw
Muchova and Mensik can now turn toward singles with a Grand Slam trophy already secured.
Bencic and Cobolli leave mixed doubles having eliminated Williams and Alcaraz, survived Svitolina and Monfils and pushed the eventual champions into a deciding tiebreak.
For Nishikori, Dimitrov, Zheng, Andreescu, Montgomery and Wong, nothing was finished.
They had one match left.
The men’s title picture was already shifting around injuries, absences and returning stars, a landscape examined in TSE’s analysis of Alexander Zverev, Novak Djokovic and Ben Shelton.
Stan Wawrinka’s route back into his final US Open also required an unusual late intervention, covered in our report on the fan pressure that preceded his wildcard.
The broader tournament schedule, major contenders and championship structure are available in The Sports Encounter’s complete US Open 2026 curtain-raiser.
The Sports Encounter Analysis
August 26 demonstrated why this year’s US Open effectively began before the traditional first round.
Muchova and Mensik had already navigated four mixed-doubles matches, survived match points, won a championship and lifted a Grand Slam trophy.
Zheng, Andreescu, Dimitrov and Nishikori had not even secured places in the singles field.
Those two realities existed simultaneously.
That is the most interesting development of Fan Week.
The US Open has turned the days before the main draw into a meaningful layer of the tournament itself.
Championships can be won there.
Comebacks can gather momentum there.
Careers can reach another Grand Slam or end one match short.
On Wednesday night, Muchova and Mensik walked away with certainty.
For everyone still in qualifying, Thursday offered one final test.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who won the 2026 US Open mixed doubles title?
Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik won the title by defeating Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli 6-3, 1-6, [10-6] in the final.
Was it Muchova and Mensik’s first Grand Slam title?
Yes. The 2026 US Open mixed doubles championship was the first Grand Slam title in any discipline for both Muchova and Mensik.
Who did Muchova and Mensik beat in the semifinal?
They defeated Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev 5-4(6), 3-5, [11-9] after saving two match points.
Who did Bencic and Cobolli beat in the semifinal?
Bencic and Cobolli defeated Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils 4-5(7), 4-1, [10-5].
Did Zheng Qinwen advance in US Open qualifying?
Yes. Zheng defeated Clara Burel 6-1, 7-5 to reach the final qualifying round.
Did Bianca Andreescu advance?
Yes. Andreescu defeated Veronika Podrez 6-0, 6-3 and moved within one victory of the main draw.
What was Kei Nishikori’s August 26 result?
Nishikori defeated 16-year-old Michael Antonius 6-4, 6-4 to reach the final qualifying round.
How did Grigor Dimitrov perform?
Dimitrov beat Timofey Skatov 7-6(5), 6-4 to move within one victory of returning to the US Open main draw.
Did Robin Montgomery win on August 26?
Yes. Montgomery defeated Jeline Vandromme 7-5, 6-3.
When did the 2026 US Open singles main draw begin?
The men’s and women’s singles main draws were scheduled to begin on Sunday, August 30.