NEW YORK — The 2026 U.S. Open has its first champions.
Karolína Muchová and Jakub Menšík, the maroon-clad Czech team that got a last-minute wild-card entry into the mixed doubles competition, walked away with the title late Wednesday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
The Czechs overpowered Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and Flavio Cobolli in a match tiebreak to win the $1 million first prize as the clock ticked toward midnight — when most of the capacity crowd of 24,000 had gone home. With a 6-3, 1-6, 10-6 win, the Czechs took home their maiden Grand Slam titles, the status the U.S. Open’s reimagined mixed doubles retains despite its divergence from just about every norm of tennis from start to finish.
“Our outfits made a difference tonight,” Muchová said when it was over.
For a second consecutive year, the new event delivered a mix of successes and shortcomings.
The crowds that flooded the grounds of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center the past two days lapped it up, especially Day 1. So many of the biggest stars in the sport were in the field then, led by Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, Carlos Alcaraz and Aryna Sabalenka.
They were joined by some of the best doubles players in the world, setting up the compelling matchups that fans wanted to see.
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The USTA even got its overriding wish for the event this year. All four teams that made the semifinals Wednesday featured top singles players, after Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, the Italian doubles stars who won the title in its original form in 2024, last year took down singles pair after singles pair to retain their title.
This year, the Italians went out in the first round. That said, the singles A-listers were gone after the quarterfinals this time round.
The sentimental favorites, the husband-and-wife duo of Elina Svitolina and Gaël Monfils, fell in the semifinals Wednesday evening, losing a match-deciding tiebreak to Cobolli and Bencic, who came back from a set down.
Muchová and Menšík saved 2 match points in their own semifinal-deciding tiebreak to topple Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev, whose vigor and vibes won the crowd but not the match.
Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli could not complete a comeback from a set down. (Caleb Bowlin / Getty Images)
Menšík, the 20-year-old serving machine, used his size and wingspan to take over the court down the stretch. He and Muchová, the 30-year-old who reached the Wimbledon final last month, did the same early against Bencic and Cobolli.
But just as he did in the semifinal against Monfils and Svitolina, Cobolli sloughed off some early errors and came alive, roping forehands across the court like the player who plowed into the French Open singles final in June.
As Cobolli lifted his game, Bencic lifted hers. She ripped a forehand return on a deciding point to get her team back into the match. They reeled off the next three games, and all of a sudden the evening had its third match-deciding tiebreak in as many matches.
Just like last year, the two semis and the final lasted five hours. Most of the packed crowd that had created so much of the buzz early in the evening had decided more than an hour before they had seen enough.
There seems to be a flaw in a schedule that has the fewest people watching the most important match. When it’s done, there are another 10 minutes spent on setting up a stage in the middle of the court to prepare for an awards ceremony. By then, all but a few hundred of the fans were gone or heading for the exits.
Don’t tell that to Muchová and Menšík, though. This setup suited them just as well as their singles games suit doubles, Menšík with his ripped serve and Muchová with her control at the net. With a blasted ace from Menšík on championship point, the trophy was just a short wait away after a long night.
