That puts a considerably harder task in front of the Serbian-Belarusian tandem than it appeared to be when the draw was announced. This is not Djokovic\u2019s first time in this format; last year he played mixed doubles with Olga Danilovic, while Sabalenka\u2019s doubles resume includes Grand Slam titles of her own. But an opponent that came through qualifying without dropping a set across two matches in a single day poses a different problem than the one they had been preparing for.<\/p>\n
Why does the swap raise the stakes?<\/p>\n
The change of opponent also changes the tone of the story around this event. Instead of an attractive clash with the home American pair, Novak and Aryna now start against opponents arriving in form, with two wins in one day behind them and nothing to lose on court. Qualifiers typically play with freedom, and when that freedom comes attached to r\u00e9sum\u00e9s like these, the added pressure falls squarely on the favorites.<\/p>\n
The match, according to a B92 preview, is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. The mixed doubles format has been compressed to its limits this year: the first round and quarterfinals are played on Tuesday, with the semifinals and final following the very next day, on Wednesday. For any pair that gets through the first round, that leaves essentially no rest, with the next match arriving just a day later.<\/p>\n
For Djokovic, this is only part of a broader schedule in New York. He is seeded fourth in the singles draw, where his first opponent is Radu Albot, as we reported earlier this week. Mixed doubles serves him as an extra match ahead of the real start of the tournament, and now, after the change of opponent, as a considerably tougher test than expected when the draw first came out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That puts a considerably harder task in front of the Serbian-Belarusian tandem than it appeared to be when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57010,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[217,1086,2482,2265,28,463],"class_list":["post-57009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-aryna-sabalenka","tag-aryna-sabalenka","tag-djokovic","tag-mixed-doubles","tag-sabalenka","tag-tennis","tag-us-open"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}