'Yeah, it’s taking jobs—but it’s worth it': Andy Roddick defends exclusion of specialists in US Open mixed doubles

Andy Roddick expressed his excitement for the new US Open mixed doubles format, asserting that it was a necessary step to grow the parallel Tour. The draw will be packed with stars who primarily play in the singles draw, including Carlos Alcaraz with Emma Raducanu, Jannik Sinner with Emma Navarro, and Aryna Sabalenka with Grigor Dimitrov.

With virtually the entire Top 10—on both the men's and women's sides—the new mixed doubles version will be played in the week leading up to the start of the main tournament, offering a $1 million prize for the winning team. However, criticisms have emerged because doubles specialists were largely left out of the draw.

In fact, the only specialist pair in the draw will be the Italians Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani, recent Roland Garros mixed doubles champions. The only other renowned doubles players joining are Taylor Townsend—partnering with Ben Shelton (No. 10)— who received a wildcard, and Jasmine Paolini—whose entry is more due to her singles ranking, partnering with Lorenzo Musetti.

Former World No. 1 Andy Roddick commented on the impressive draw established for the new tournament format. According to him, it even exceeded his expectations. "This entry list, I thought it would be fine, I thought we’d have some cool names and some cool matchups, this is a 12/10 with the people who are going to do this," he said. "Don’t argue with me about what mixed doubles should be if you don’t get excited about this."

"People were like we had to grow the game of doubles, so we can’t take that away from the doubles that people don’t watch regularly… that was confusing to me," Roddick added. "Now, you get nine of the top ten on each side, biggest stars on earth, and then some. This is going to bring more eyeballs to the game of doubles."

"Now, is it taking jobs away from doubles players who kind of run this side tour? Yeah, it is," the 2003 US Open champion stated. "But, if your net, most important thing is - which is the defense that I get when people are mad at me when I talk about doubles - is ‘we have to grow the game of doubles’, there is not a better way to grow the game of doubles than to have the biggest stars on earth playing doubles, featured, ESPN prime time, in the lead-up to the US Open."