When it was first announced that American tennis star Emma Navarro would play with world No. 1 Jannik Sinner at the reimagined Mixed Doubles event at the U.S. Open, Navarro joked that she “would try to get a better partner next year.”
“He was begging me to play, he was saying, ‘I heard about your volleys and your doubles skills. Please. please play with me,” Navarro cracked last month on Tennis Channel. “I said, ‘Yeah, sure, I guess. I guess I’ll play with you. You’re not the best player, but I’ll make an exception and try to get a better partner next year.’”
Well, it turns out that Navarro won’t play with Sinner at all in the $1 million event that runs Tuesday and Wednesday at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.
The No. 11-ranked player in the world and the daughter of billionaire Ben Navarro, Emma Navarro pulled out of the Mixed Doubles in order to play a WTA 500 event in Monterrey, Mexico in the week leading up to the start of the singles tournament at the U.S. Open (Aug. 24).
Navarro is coming off losing early on hardcourts in Montreal and Cincinnati, and playing in Mexico will give her more practice matches heading into the U.S. Open, where she reached the semifinals a year ago.
According to the USTA, Sinner has until 2 p.m. on Sunday to find a new partner for the U.S. Open. The Italian is set to play in the semifinals of the Cincinnati Open on Saturday, and could face Carlos Alcaraz in Monday’s championship match.
Navarro, who made headlines at Wimbledon when a group of Knicks-clad fans attended her matches to support her, isn’t the only big-name female star skipping the new Mixed Doubles event.
World No. 2 Coco Gauff said she didn’t “want to waste mental energy” on the event, while No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka and her partner Grigor Dimitrov are out after Dimitrov sustained a pectoral injury at Wimbledon.
The event is still loaded with star tandems, though, including Madison Keys and Frances Tiafoe, Emma Raducanu and Alcaraz, Novak Djokovic and Olga Danilovic, Taylor Townsend and Ben Shelton and Venus Williams and Jack Draper.
As for Navarro, good luck finding a “better partner” than the world No. 1 in 2026.
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Adam Zagoria is a freelance reporter and Basketball Insider for NJ Advance Media. You may follow him on Twitter @AdamZagoria and check out his Website at ZAGSBLOG.com.
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