was the year when they won the two singles titles at the All England Club. However, after Robert Seguso and Carling Bassett-Seguso played together at Wimbledon in 1991, there were nomore husband- and-wife teams at the All England Club until last year. For many tennis fans the lack of modern-day opportunities to watchmixed doubles is a regret, emphasised by the fact that the Hopman Cup has not been contested since 2019, though there are plans for the competition to be revived next year. Mixed doubles is, after all, a game that many club players will play regularly. Althoughmost of today’s top singles players rarely compete inmixed doubles, there is always huge interest when they do, as AndyMurray and SerenaWilliams discoveredwhen they joined forces at Wimbledon in 2019. Any hopes that Gael Monfils and his wife, Elina Svitolina, might raise the profile of mixed doubles would appear to be doomed. The Frenchman and the Ukrainian, who are both former top 10 singles players and Grand Slam semi-finalists, married last summer, but appear unlikely to playmixed doubles together. “We would like to play, but unfortunately you can only play [mixed doubles in] the Grand Slams and the Grand Slams are the events where youwant to perform really well [in singles],” Svitolina said.
Back on court Roger Federer and his wife Mirka, pictured (top) making a rare on-court appearance together in Doha, played alongside each other at the Hopman Cup in 2002 before they were married, but Elina Svitolina and Gael Monfils (above) are not expecting to play mixed doubles together
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