Top seeds Novak Djokovic and Aryna Sabalenka suffered a first-round exit in the US Open mixed doubles after surrendering a one-set lead to lose to Britain’s Henry Patten and Czech player Katerina Siniakova.
The high-profile pair looked set to progress to the quarter-finals after clinching the opening set 4-1.
But Patten and Siniakova – two of the world’s top-ranked doubles players – overcame some early nerves to complete a 1-4 4-2 10-2 comeback victory at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Djokovic – a 24-time grand slam singles champion, including four US Open titles – was aced by Siniakova on match point in the tie-break.
Patten, 30, told Sky Sports: “It wasn’t looking very good for a while. In this format, we played one bad game and all of a sudden the first set’s gone.
“We knew the same was possible in the second set and we played an amazing tie-break – Kat acing Novak on match point was pretty fun.”
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The mixed doubles was revamped last year to include singles stars in a bid to attract greater attention to the format.
A shorter scoring system was introduced, with only four games required to win a set in matches before the final, no ‘advantage’ scoring, and 10-point match tie-breaks instead of a third set throughout.
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