Mixed Doubles: How the Rules Shape the Stats

Mixed doubles is tennis played by two pairs, each consisting of one woman and one man. It uses the doubles court and ordinary doubles serving and receiving rules, but the scoring format depends on the competition.

For anyone reading a broadcast stat line, two details matter especially: a team’s service-points-won percentage combines two different servers, and a no-ad deciding point has a specific receiving rule. Neither should be interpreted as if this were a singles match.

The court and serving order

The doubles court is 78 feet long and 36 feet wide (23.77 by 10.97 metres). The outside alleys are in during rallies, but the service boxes do not get wider: serves must still land in the diagonally opposite service box. These dimensions and service requirements come from the 2026 ITF Rules of Tennis. For a fuller breakdown, see our tennis court dimensions guide.

Each team chooses which partner serves its first service game of a set. The other partner serves that team’s next service game, and the four-player rotation continues throughout the set.

For example, a legal opening sequence is:

1. Team A’s woman
2. Team B’s woman
3. Team A’s man
4. Team B’s man

So teams alternate service games; genders do not have to alternate. Teams can choose a different internal serving order at the start of the next set.

The receiving pair also chooses who receives the first point of its first return game. That player takes the deuce-side returns; the partner takes the ad-side returns, and those assignments continue for the set, subject to the no-ad exception below. After the return, either partner may hit the next shot—doubles partners do not have to alternate rally strokes. These are the ITF’s Rules 14 and 15.

What happens at 40–40?

Under advantage scoring, a team must win two consecutive points from deuce to win the game. Under no-ad scoring, one deciding point at 40–40 settles it.

Mixed doubles has an important exception to the usual no-ad receiver-choice rule: the player of the same gender as the server receives the deciding point. A woman serves to the opposing woman; a man serves to the opposing man. The receiving partners cannot swap their assigned positions for that point. This is specified in Appendix VI of the ITF rules.

That point is both game point for the serving pair and break point for the receiving pair. A deciding-point statistic therefore describes a particular matchup, not simply a team’s performance against whichever receiver it would prefer.

A match tiebreak is not a full deciding set

The scoring format needs to be identified before comparing match lengths, breaks or ace totals.

The 2026 US Open’s published mixed doubles format specified sets to four games, tiebreaks at 4–4 and no-ad scoring for qualifying through the semifinals. The final used sets to six games, tiebreaks at 6–6 and no-ad scoring. In both cases, a 10-point match tiebreak replaced the third set, according to the tournament’s format announcement.

A 10-point match tiebreak is won by reaching at least 10 points with a two-point margin. It replaces the whole deciding set; it is different from playing a full third set and using a tiebreak only at 6–6. The ITF rules explicitly distinguish match tiebreaks from final-set tiebreaks.

There are no ordinary service games to hold or break inside that match tiebreak. Losing a point on serve there should not be added to a count of service games broken.

How to read mixed doubles serve stats

Start with each server’s opportunities, then combine the counts—not the percentages.

Here is a hypothetical example, not a recorded match:

Server	Service points played	Service points won	Service points won rate
Partner A	32	24	75.0%
Partner B	24	12	50.0%
Pair combined	56	36	64.3%

The pair won 36 of 56 service points: 64.3%, not the 62.5% obtained by averaging the two player percentages. Partner A served more points, so their results carry more weight.

Use the same discipline with other metrics:

• First-serve percentage: first serves in divided by service points played, rather than a simple average of the partners’ rates.
• Ace rate: aces divided by service points played. Raw ace totals also reflect how many serving opportunities each player had; see career aces versus ace rate.
• Break points saved: break points won by the serving pair divided by break points faced. Show the count alongside the percentage, identify the server, and note whether games used no-ad scoring.

Service points won is a pair outcome: once a return comes back, the server’s partner can help win—or lose—the point. Split the data by server and, where available, receiver, first versus second serve, surface and scoring format before attributing a team percentage to one player’s serving quality. A handful of deciding-point wins describes what happened in those points; it does not, by itself, establish superior mental strength.