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‘Never thought this would happen!’: Superstars join forces in ‘unbelievable’ US Open debut The superstar pairing of Serena Williams and Carlos Alcaraz made a winning debut Tuesday, shrugging off early cobwebs in the opening round of the US Open’s mixed doubles tournament. Williams, in her first competitive match in Arthur Ashe Stadium since her 2022 retirement, paired with Spain’s Alcaraz, himself back after a lengthy injury layoff, to advance to the quarter-finals in straight sets. Watch the biggest Aussie sports & the best from overseas LIVE on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? Join now and get your first month for just $1. Williams, a six-time US Open singles champion, and Alcaraz, a two-time winner and defending men’s singles champion, defeated the British-New Zealand pair of Lloyd Glasspool and Emma Routliffe 5-3, and 3-1. The match began inauspiciously for the high-wattage pairing, with Alcaraz, who paired up with Emma Raducanu when the new-look mixed doubles event debuted in New York last year, double-faulting and losing serve. The Spaniard joked in their on court interview that “everyone could see” he was nervous to play with the 23-time grand slam champion from his double fault to start the match. But the dream team turned the tide midway through the opening set of the shortened-format competition, breaking back to get back to level and then a second time in the opening set’s final game. At 30-30, Williams let out a trademark roar as she rifled a forehand return of serve winner crosscourt and out of reach. Alcaraz matched her on the next point, sealing the set with a big forehand passing shot up the line. Afterwards, Alcaraz acknowledged feeling “really, really nervous” at the outset, noting he had been out for more than four months. But Williams, who made her comeback to grand slam singles at Wimbledon at age 44, “made it really easy,” said the Spaniard, who also saluted the crowd. “It’s always such an amazing place to be here. I never expected to be back on this court,” Williams said post-match. “So it was just a really cool moment. I never thought this would happen!” She added: “This is such a bonus for us to be out here. To play with Carlos is honestly so cool. We’re just out here having fun.” The pair were beaten in the quarter-finals by Belinda Bencic of Switzerland and Flavio Cobolli of Italy later in the day, however. Alcaraz and Williams went down 5-4, 4-1 to the fourth seeds, who won the mixed doubles title at Indian Wells earlier this year. Bencic and Cobolli will take on married pair Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina in a semi-final. After the match, Williams posted a video of the pair to her Instagram story. “I feel great. Even if I lost, playing with her, I’m feeling amazing,” Alcaraz said. “We did good. We won one, we lost one,” Williams replied. Earlier, former world number one Novak Djokovic and four-time Grand Slam champion Aryna Sabalenka were sent tumbling out of the US Open’s mixed doubles tournament on Tuesday by Czech Katerina Siniakova and Britain’s Henry Patten. Doubles specialists Siniakova and Patten recovered from dropping the opening set to win 1-4, 4-2 before cruising to a 10-2 win in the decisive third set tie-break. Serbian great Djokovic and Belarus star Sabalenka represented a heavyweight mixed doubles union at the Arthur Ashe Stadium at Flushing Meadows. But despite taking the first set, the duo were unable to respond when Siniakova and Patten -- ranked No.1 in the world in women’s and men’s doubles -- improved in the second set. The US Open mixed doubles format features a blend of doubles specialists and star singles players pairing up, sometimes with a bit an experimental mindset. The event, in its second year, will have a new winner after defending champions Andrea Vavassori and Sara Errani, both doubles specialists, lost to the Russian pair of Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev 1-4, 4-1, 11-9. The Czech pairing of Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik, both highly ranked singles players, realized quickly they had to adjust when they faced Kristina Mladenovic of France and Marcelo Arevalo of El Salvador, both of whom have won Grand Slam doubles titles. “They keep us more on our toes,” Muchova said after a quarterfinal win put the pair in the semifinals. “They see the court I would say a little bit different.” One first-time team that scored unexpected success was the husband-and-wife pairing of France’s Gael Monfils and Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina. They won two matches in the shortened format, including a tightly contested quarterfinal win over Siniakova and Patten 5-4, 4-5 and 10-8 in the decisive tie-break. “We had zero expectations,” Svitolina said after the match. The pair only learned late that they had been granted a wildcard and had joked about not winning a game. Monfils, who will retire after this season, said it is still too early for talk about winning the title, but “we will have great images for our memory.” The US Open holds its mixed doubles event in the days before the main draw of the singles championship, which get under way on Sunday.