Errani-Vavassori vs. Andreeva-Rublev: the short set favors the specialists

The first round of the US Open mixed doubles pits Sara Errani and Andrea Vavassori, the two-time defending champions, against Mirra Andreeva and Andrey Rublev. The current read is that the shortened format introduced in 2025 levels the field in favor of singles specialists. On this particular matchup it does the opposite: the four-game set strips the opponents of the main lever they'd otherwise have against Errani.

The four-game set hides the only target

Through the semifinals, matches are best-of-three short sets: first to four games, sudden-death point at deuce, tie-break at 4-4, and a ten-point match tie-break instead of a third set.

In sets that close out 4-0, each of the four players on court serves exactly once. The classic plan against a pair fielding a doubles specialist still holds here, because Errani's serve is the slowest of the four and that's where the break gets built. But in a six-game set Andreeva and Rublev would get two or three return chances on that service game. In this format they often get one, and have to convert it on the first try.

Vavassori serves just as often. The gap between the best and worst serve on court stays the same; the number of chances to exploit it is cut in half.

The sudden-death point rewards those who've already lived inside it

Without advantage scoring, every deuce becomes a single point. In a match of two short sets, the count of decisive moments goes up rather than down: it adds up to around thirty high-leverage points, many of them landing on a game riding on a single serve.

Their recent track record says something specific. Errani and Vavassori have closed out their last two mixed slam titles through the deciding tie-break: 6-3, 5-7, 10-6 over Swiatek and Ruud in the 2025 New York final, 4-6, 6-3, 10-4 over Dabrowski and King in Paris this past June. In both, they dropped a set and won the match tie-break. That's four mixed slam titles from 2024 to now: US Open 2024, Roland Garros and US Open 2025, Roland Garros 2026.

In mixed doubles, the sudden-death point is often won with a first serve in and net position. Raw power matters less than the pairing of names suggests, which is why a forehand like Rublev's doesn't automatically put his team ahead.

Andreeva is no doubles bystander

The real threat to the Italians is Andreeva. The Russian, world number 5 in singles, reached number 12 in the doubles rankings in September 2025 and won Olympic silver at Paris 2024 with Diana Shnaider. In that final she lost to Errani, paired with Jasmine Paolini. She knows how to work the net, returns deep, and doesn't need to adjust to the wider doubles court: she's been playing it for several seasons now.

Rublev does have history here, and it's unfavorable. In the quarterfinals of this same tournament's 2025 edition, he lost to Errani and Vavassori themselves, paired with Karolina Muchova. His August isn't helping the cause: at Cincinnati he fell to Nuno Borges, 6-3 6-4. Andreeva is also coming off a round-of-16 loss with Marta Kostyuk, 4-6 6-0 6-2.

The Italians enter as wild cards and unseeded, and seeding in the 2026 mixed format is based on singles rankings, so it says nothing about the doubles level of the sixteen pairs.

Errani and Vavassori start as favorites, by a narrower margin than their trophy case suggests. The condition that flips the forecast is the same arithmetic that protects them, read in reverse: if Errani gets broken in her one service game of a set, that set is gone, because the format leaves no time for the counter-break. The signal to watch is Rublev's first return game. If Vavassori holds serve without facing a break point in the first two service games, the Italians advance and the draw opens up toward the quarterfinals.