Paired answer: Kudermetova and Mertens are back on the winning path

At the US Open Tennis Championship, all Russians were eliminated in singles. Andrey Rublev and Ekaterina Alexandrova were the last of our students to finish their fight in New York. However, our Veronika Kudermetova continues to compete in the women's doubles in tandem with Belgian Elise Mertens, who reached the semifinals. There they will have to play with the first "seeded" Katerina Sinyakova and Taylor Tausend.

A successful series

Kudermetova and Mertens had a very successful period playing as a couple. In 2022, they reached the semi-finals of the Australian Open, won the "thousandth" in Dubai and the Final WTA tournament. After the victory in the USA, the Russian-Belgian duo suddenly broke up. Veronica played in an alliance with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Lyudmila Samsonova, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Zhan Haoqing. With the latter last year, they qualified for the Final in Saudi Arabia, losing in the semifinals to Taylor Townsend and the current world number one in doubles Katerina Sinyakova. This year, Kudermetova performed in pairs with Anastasia Potapova, Ena Sibahara and the same Zhan Haoqing. It didn't work out with the representative of Taiwan this time. The pair were eliminated in the first or second round, so Kudermetova paired up with Mertens again in Madrid for the first time since 2022. It worked.

The Russian-Belgian pair immediately reached the finals, including beating the second-seeded Paolini./Errani is in the 1/8 finals. However, it was not possible to replenish my collection of titles. In the championship tiebreak of the decisive match of the Spanish "thousandth", the girls allowed Anna Kalinskaya and Sorana Kirsta to win the largest doubles title of their careers. Nevertheless, in Rome, Kudermetova and Mertens reached the finals again, proving themselves to be one of the most stable couples of the tour.

The girls reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros and came to Wimbledon as the eighth seed. In the 1/8 finals, they eliminated 11th-seeded Beatriz Haddad Maya and Laura Siegemund, and in the quarterfinals, they defeated one of the main favorites of the tournament, Erin Rutliff and Gabriel Dabrowski. In the semifinals, there was a difficult duel with Desiree Krawczyk and Olivia Gadecki. After losing in the first set, Veronica and Eliza allowed their opponents to take only three games in the remaining two games, and in the decisive match they beat Xi Suwei and Elena Ostapenko in a dramatic fight.

Mirra and Diana won Brisbane and the thousandth in Miami in 2025, and were in the semifinals of the Australian Open, Rome and Roland Garros. Overall, the forces looked equal, and the match was expected to be interesting and unpredictable. However, the real fight was only in the first set. The decisive moment was the seventh game, when Veronica and Eliza made a break (4-3) and were no longer allowed to doubt their victory. In the second game, Kudermetova's game went wrong. The balls flew into the out or net, and she herself periodically shouted something to the coach. But Mertens calmed her down and pulled her through the most important moments. The Belgian not only performed well at the net, but also served with high accuracy. Of the four players on the court, she was the best. Therefore, even a powerful game was enough for Eliza alone to cope with the Russians, who took only two games.

6-4, 6-2 — Kudermetova and Mertens reached the semifinals of the US Open, and our girls left the tournament. Earlier, Andreeva and Schneider also crashed out of the singles draw in the third and first rounds, respectively. Kudermetova remained the only representative of Russia in both adult categories.

Next, Veronica and Eliza will play with top-seeded Katerina Sinyakova and Taylor Tausend, who have not lost a single set at the US Open yet. It is the Czech and American tennis player who are considered the favorites of the confrontation, but the victory of Kudermetova and Mertens will not be considered a sensation.

Difficult opponents

Andrey Rublev failed to take a single set from Felix Auger-Alliassim in the fourth round of the US Open. The quarterfinal match lasted only 2 hours and 17 minutes. The Canadian beat a top-20 opponent in a Grand Slam tournament for the fifth time in his career (with seven defeats), and Rublev could not improve on his last year's result when he lost to Grigor Dimitrov at the same stage.

It's a shame for Rublev. He lost to Yannick Sinner in the 1/8 finals of Roland Garros, and Carlos Alcaraz at the same stage of Wimbledon. The best players in the world. In New York, however, to an opponent who was 8-1 in face—to-face meetings.

Ekaterina Alexandrova also failed to reach the quarterfinals, and this year she is showing the most stable game among our tennis players (she is in 11th place in the WTA championship race). The Russian was unlucky to meet the second racket of the world, Iga Sventek, who is now in perfect shape, having won the Masters in Cincinnati before the US Open.

Aleksandrova was beaten by Sventek in just over an hour, and immediately went to training after the match. Hardly anyone can stop the Yoke in this form.