Ricky Dimon
The U.S. Open mixed doubles competition has been totally revamped. It will take place during U.S. Open Fan Week (this Tuesday and Wednesday), long before the real tournament (singles, doubles, etc.) truly begins. Now that it doesn’t conflict with singles and with $1,000,000 going to the winning team, a whole host of the world’s best tennis players have been lured to participate.
Fans and bettors are among the beneficiaries. Both individual match odds and futures odds have been rolled out by the sportsbooks, and this figures to be a scorching-hot market – both at the betting window and on television.
Here are my 3 favorite bets for the opening round, and also be sure to check out my best U.S. Open mixed doubles futures bets.
Caty McNally and Lorenzo Musetti ML over Naomi Osaka and Gael Monfils (-138)
Programming note: from round 1 through the semifinals, matches will be best-of-3 sets with short sets to 4 games with no-ad scoring, tiebreakers at 4-4 and a 10-point tiebreaker in lieu of a third. These are short matches, making the outcomes more of a crapshoot than under normal circumstances. That being said, there is still good value to be found on some of the favorites.
The best bet of all on Day 1 is McNally and Musetti to win their first-round match. McNally is a 2-time U.S. Open finalist and a 2-time Australian Open quarterfinalist in women’s doubles. Musetti just finished runner-up in the Cincinnati doubles tournament with fellow Italian Lorenzo Sonego on Sunday. There is no reason to think that Osaka and Monfils will provide any real resistance. Neither plays much doubles and Monfils isn’t even playing well in singles these days.
Madison Keys and Frances Tiafoe ML over Iga Swiatek and Casper Ruud (-120)
Not too much unlike Osaka and Monfils, Swiatek and Ruud are close to automatic fades. Swiatek will have zero days off after contesting the Cincinnati singles final on Monday. Ruud has won only 3 singles matches since the French Open, missing a fair amount of time due to injury. The Norwegian has some doubles experience…but not much. Meanwhile, perhaps the biggest key to mixed doubles is the woman being able to hold her serve. Well, Keys wields one of the biggest serves on the WTA Tour. She and Tiafoe will also have the crowd firmly in their corner.
Emma Raducanu and Carlos Alcaraz +1.5 sets over Jessica Pegula and Jack Draper (-163)
Alcaraz will be making a quick turnaround after facing Jannik Sinner in the Cincinnati championship match on Monday afternoon. Still, he should have enough left in the tank to at least win 1 mixed doubles match. His partner, Raducanu, is a former U.S. Open singles champion (2021). More importantly, I’m not overly high on the Pegula-Draper pairing. Pegula is a great doubles player, but Draper has been injured since Wimbledon. He has not played a match in more than 6 weeks. I have Raducanu and Alcaraz winning outright, so asking them simply to take 1 set certainly should not be too much.
