One of the greatest players in tennis history is returning to New York. Serena Williams will compete in the 2026 US Open mixed doubles alongside Carlos Alcaraz after tournament organisers awarded the superstar pairing a wild card. It will be the 44-year-old American’s first US Open appearance since 2022, when she stepped away from professional tennis following her final run at Flushing Meadows. Williams returned to competitive tennis this summer and will now once again appear before the New York crowd at the tournament where she achieved some of the greatest successes of her career. Williams owns 23 Grand Slam singles titles and is a six-time US Open singles champion. She also has history in mixed doubles in New York: in 1998 she won the US Open mixed doubles championship alongside Max Mirnyi, before claiming the first of her six singles titles at the tournament.
Her partnership with Carlos Alcaraz immediately makes the pair one of the major attractions of this year’s competition. The Spaniard is one of the dominant players of his generation and is returning after a right wrist injury kept him away from competition since April. Alcaraz will defend his US Open singles crown in New York while also joining Williams in mixed doubles. His reaction after the partnership was officially confirmed was brief but enthusiastic: “Let’s gooooo!” he wrote on social media. The combination is also remarkable because of the generational difference between the two champions. Williams was born in 1981 and Alcaraz in 2003, an age gap of almost 22 years, yet together they bring an extraordinary 30 Grand Slam singles titles to the court – 23 for Williams and seven for Alcaraz.
US Open mixed doubles now looks very different from the traditional competition Williams won in 1998. The event was revamped in 2025 in an effort to attract more of the world’s leading singles stars, and the 2026 field again features some of the biggest names in tennis. The championship is concentrated into a short period before the main singles competition, with the winning team sharing $1 million in prize money. Other high-profile combinations include Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka, alongside several leading ATP and WTA players. Mixed doubles, traditionally overshadowed by the singles tournaments at Grand Slam events, is consequently becoming one of the major attractions of US Open week.
For Williams, the appearance carries powerful symbolic significance. Four years ago, her 2022 US Open run appeared to mark the conclusion of one of the greatest careers in sporting history. In 2026, however, she returned to competitive tennis and recently played doubles with her older sister Venus at the Cincinnati Open. Her return to New York now completes an extraordinary circle – from the tournament where she appeared to say goodbye to professional tennis to the same venue four years later. This time she will have one of the greatest stars of the new generation alongside her. Regardless of how far Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz progress, their partnership has already become one of the most anticipated attractions of the 2026 US Open.
