Married duo Svitolina, Monfils reach US Open mixed doubles semifinal
Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils became the first mixed-doubles team to reach the US Open semifinals, where they will face Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli.
Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils advanced to the mixed-doubles semifinals at the US Open after defeating Katerina Siniakova and Henry Patten 5-4 (6), 4-5 (3) (10-8). The married pair, who received wild-cards for the event, will meet Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli in Wednesday's semifinal. The winning team will earn a $1 million prize.
Monfils said after the match, "Happy wife, happy life," and shared a kiss and hug with his spouse on court. Svitolina added that the duo had not prepared a specific game plan until the day before the tournament and only practiced a few doubles drills on Monday.
Other notable results included Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz losing to Bencic and Cobolli after winning their opening match, and Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev advancing to face Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik in the other semifinal.
The US Open this year used a shortened scoring format for early rounds, with sets to four games and a 10-point tiebreaker instead of a full third set, a change intended to attract more top singles players to the doubles draws.