FILIPINO tennis ace Alex Eala and Canadian partner Felix Auger-Aliassime open their US Open mixed doubles campaign against the husband-and-wife tandem of Gael Monfils and Elina Svitolina at the Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York on Wednesday.
The qualifying rounds are still ongoing Tuesday in Manila.
Both the Eala-Auger-Aliassime and Mofils-Sviolina duos received wildcard entries in the main draw which starts at round of 16.
The winner faces either the top seed tandem of Aryna Sabalenka and Novak Djokovic or another wildcard pair of Leylah Fernandez and Frances Tiafoe.
Eala is rated No. 18 in the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) rankings, while Auger-Aliassime is No. 4 in the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP).
On the other hand, Svitolina of Ukraine is WTA No. 9 while Monfils is ATP No. 307.
From the first round to the semifinals, the mixed doubles follows a shortened "fast-four" format where the first team to win four games wins the set.
There will be no-advantage scoring, which means the team to score right after deuce (40-40) wins the game.
In the event of a 4-game tie, a standard tiebreak is played to decide the winner.
If the teams split the first two sets, a 10-point match tiebreak will be used instead of a full third set.
The final follows a longer format where a team must win six games to take a set, with a standard tiebreak used in case of a 6-game tie.
The championship match retains the no-advantage scoring and the 10-point match tiebreak if the finalists split the first two sets.
Eala and Auger-Aliassime are guaranteed to share prize money of $40,000 or P2.4 million for their round of 16 appearance.
If they win the entire tournament, the Filipino-Canadian tandem will share a payout of $1 million or more than P61 million.
