This completely wasn’t supposed to happen; especially with a new format geared for singles champions, but Sara Errani and Andre Vavassori made it pretty difficult to doubt them again, as experience, heart, and skill brought them some glory in a title defense for back to back champions at the US Open for mixed doubles.
The Italians beat singles stars Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud in a full Arthur Ashe Stadium 6-3, 5-7, 10-6 to repeat as mixed doubles champions, not to mention they may look like any other mixed doubles team as they once carried non-doubles players.
Format Change – Disappointing Champions
The 2025 mixed doubles was billed with 16 teams during Fan week because of the high benchmark for singles players moving forward fused with a commitment to only doubles players (basically the progress of the game for more players), and really put more players out to pasture they deem devoted to doubles. Fortunately for Errani and Vavassori, they were lucky enough to have a Wild Card entry as a historical participant in what is defined as a new model going forward.
Doubles IQ – Learning Lesson on Strategy
The duo didn’t have records in singles, but nobody would be betting against them in doubles. When they finished off the first set, they went through a second set scare and easily navigated their way to a 4-0 run to win the match tie break by leaving Swiatek and Ruud hurriedly going through their thought process of what just happened.
Swiatek even mentioned at the post match press conference:
“Doubles players are better tactically than singles players.”
This wasn’t just title defense, this was a statement – The crown can change for our singles player in a heartbeat, but the choreography and personality of a doubles champion wins championships and gives a legacy life.
(The featured image is attributed to “Oleg Yunakov, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.” No changes were made thereto.)