Ons Jabeur is continuing her comeback after missing the latter stages of the 2024 season.
Jabeur missed the US Open last year, ending her season after the Canadian Open due to a shoulder injury.
After having time to recover, Jabeur returned at the Brisbane International before making her Grand Slam comeback at the Australian Open.
Despite being knocked out in the third round by Emma Navarro, Jabeur was happy for Madison Keys after she won her first Grand Slam title.
The Tunisian is continuing her climb back up the rankings after reaching the Qatar Open quarter-finals.
Ons Jabeur says what she thinks about the US Open changing mixed doubles
With Jabeur missing the US Open last year, the former finalist is looking to return to New York in style.
There have already been some big changes announced for the US Open, with the Grand Slam tournament set to be longer than ever.
Perhaps the biggest update to the New York major is not related to singles, with the US Open overhauling mixed doubles.
This includes changing the start date to the same week as qualifying, with the event now only featuring 16 teams and taking place over just two days.
The US Open have been heavily criticized for this decision, with doubles specialists particularly frustrated with singles players receiving priority.
This topic was brought to Jabeur in her press conference at the Qatar Open, with the 30-year-old admitting that she will miss mixed doubles being in the latter stages of the US Open, despite never entering the event herself.
“I honestly don’t know what the research is behind having the mixed doubles before,” said Jabeur. “I, obviously, never played mixed doubles in my life. I’m sure we have to try to know if it works or not, but I prefer to leave it to the people that are experts to know if it’s better to start before or after.
“I hope we will have more crowd to watch the mixed doubles, and be like, you know, supportive for that. But, yeah, for sure I will miss seeing the mixed doubles in the second week of the slam, it’s going to be a little bit weird (smiling).”
Although there has been a lot of criticism for this decision, Taylor Fritz has supported the US Open and explained that he could play mixed doubles at a Grand Slam for the first time in 10 years.
Fritz is not the only player to have hinted at this, with Holger Rune also reacting to the US Open’s announcement.
Why have the US Open decided to change mixed doubles?
US Open tournament director Stacey Allaster explained the reasoning behind this decision on the Served with Andy Roddick podcast, suggesting that they wanted to bring life back to mixed doubles.
“We are announcing that the US Open mixed doubles championship will move from the third week of the US Open to the first week of the US Open, which we call fan week,” said Allaster.
“Alongside us taking this important championship being overshadowed by the finals of the singles competition and men’s and women’s doubles, and putting it in the first week we are giving top singles players the opportunity to compete for the championship.
“In addition to not only moving the championships, we are changing the draw size from 32 teams to 16 teams. Eight of which will be direct entry and eight wildcards, so that we can have the flexibility with the summer grind for athletes to see how they do in Canada and Cincinnati and see if they want to play.
“In addition we are changing the scoring format for the first three rounds to make it a little tighter, like an hour match, with short sets up to four. The final will be played with regular sets and lastly a $1 million purse for the winning team.
“We want to elevate this important mixed doubles championship. Our CEO (Lew Sherr) is a real champion of equality, he has been talking about this for two or three years but it really came in focus in 2022 as we were celebrating 50 years of equality.
“How do we continue as a sport to be a beacon for equality? We are the only professional sport which has the opportunity for the top players to play on the same stage competing for equal prize money and we know that when we see the top players playing mixed the fans are excited.”
Allaster has hinted at making more changes to the US Open, with the mixed doubles event taking place on August 19-20.
The singles main draw of the US Open will get underway a few days later on Sunday August 24.
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