When it got here to discovering a associate for the newly formatted combined doubles occasion at this yr's U.S. Open, it appeared like a no brainer for World No. 6-ranked Madison Keys.
The reigning Australian Open champion is partnered with Frances Tiafoe, with whom Keys shares an nearly sibling-like relationship.
“It was fairly simple. Once they introduced the brand new format and the entire issues, he was form of the primary person who popped into my head,” Keys informed The Put up. “I've recognized him for a lot of, a few years. We lived in the identical residence constructing for a really very long time, and I really feel like I mainly needed to attempt to maintain him alive. I simply actually get pleasure from being round him. I actually like giving him s–t and simply form of poking enjoyable at him. And I really feel like he's additionally clearly an outstanding tennis participant.
“It simply felt like if I used to be going to do that, I wished to do it with somebody who I used to be going to only have essentially the most enjoyable with.”
Keys and Tiafoe are among the many 16 pairings participating on this yr's occasion, which has gone by a drastic shake-up that has been met with intrigue and criticism.
The event begins Tuesday with a discipline that was shrunk from 32 to 16 and contains a few of tennis' high gamers on the earth, together with 10 main singles champions and a mixed 54 Grand Slam titles amongst them.
Carlos Alcaraz is taking part in with Emma Raducanu; Venus Williams will play with Reilly Opelka; and Jessica Pegula is teaming up with Jack Draper, to call just a few.
Jannik Sinner is slated to play with Katerina Siniakova, however after Sinner retired from the Cincinnati Open remaining on Monday as a result of sickness, there's some query whether or not he'll nonetheless compete within the combined doubles in Queens.
The combined doubles will happen over a two-day interval — the primary two rounds might be held Tuesday, adopted by the semifinals and remaining Wednesday — all at Arthur Ashe and Louis Armstrong stadium, with the successful pair taking residence a $1 million shared prize.
Groups will solely must win 4 video games to be able to win a set, and there might be no benefit scoring.
Within the remaining, it should stay a best-of-three-set match, however the workforce might want to win six video games to clinch the set.
The brand new format hasn't come with out its critics, specifically, these deemed doubles specialists, who're lacking out on attending to play within the revamped event.
Sem Verbeek, the Wimbledon combined doubles champion, informed BBC that his “coronary heart is bleeding” over the format change for the U.S. Open occasion.
Whereas the famous person pairings will draw extra consideration, it leaves quite a lot of doubles specialists lacking out on competing.
“I'm not going to actively root in opposition to it for it to not be successful,” he mentioned. “The optimistic I can consider is that there's going to be extra folks that may see the highest single stars earlier within the event when they're possibly a bit extra accessible to the general public. However as a doubles athlete, my coronary heart is bleeding.”
