COLUMN - The World’s No. 1 doubles players had to qualify for mixed doubles because tennis but who are the five oddest couples

There are moments when tennis makes you question whether anyone involved in running tennis has ever actually met tennis. Monday was one of those moments. Henry “Prince” Patten is the No. 1 men’s doubles player in the world. Katerina “Queen” Siniakova is the No. 1 women’s doubles player in the world.

They decided to play mixed doubles together at the U.S. Open, which would seem to make them, I don’t know, reasonably qualified. Naturally, they had to qualify. Read that again. The No. 1 men’s doubles player and No. 1 women’s doubles player on planet Earth formed a doubles team for a Grand Slam and were told, essentially: Interesting résumé. We’ll need to see what you can do. This is because entries for the revamped mixed doubles event were largely determined by combined singles rankings.

Of course they were. Our beloved sport was handed a very simple assignment — assemble an elite mixed doubles field — and somehow decided that doubles rankings would be an unnecessarily obvious way of determining who should play doubles. So Patten and Siniakova spent Monday playing two abbreviated qualifying matches for the privilege of entering the main draw Tuesday and Wednesday, where an enormous bag of cash awaits the winners.

And you know what? It was absolutely lovely. Whatever I think about the format — and I have thoughts — the qualifying event itself was great fun. It was quick, strange, unpredictable and packed with the sort of pairings that make mixed doubles one of the most entertaining things tennis does when tennis remembers that entertainment is allowed.

And Patten and Siniakova were the darlings of the day. There is something wonderfully awkward about them. They interact like two people who were introduced on Friday and are still not completely certain whether they're supposed to shake hands when they see each other. If somebody told me their entire pre-tournament conversation consisted of “You play deuce?” and “Sure,” I would believe it. Yet on court? It works. Really well, actually.

Patten and Siniakova have a natural tennis chemistry that is much better than their slightly uncomfortable personal chemistry would suggest. They know doubles. They understand positioning. They know when to move, when to poach, when to cover and when to let their partner do what their partner does best. Funny how that happens when you put the two best doubles players in the world together.

They should not be counted out against the bigger-name singles stars, either. Not remotely. Which brings us to those bigger-name pairings. Because if the Patten-Siniakova partnership feels weird off the court but completely sensible on it, several other teams in this tournament appear to have been assembled by pulling names out of two hats.

I cannot explain why, but this pairing makes me laugh. There may not be a stranger personality fit in the entire draw. Both are obviously tremendous tennis players. Both have huge games. Both understand big occasions. Together? I see a slow-raging trash fire. Not necessarily a bad trash fire. Possibly a highly entertaining trash fire. But I have absolutely no idea where the chemistry is supposed to come from.

Maybe they prove me spectacularly wrong. I hope they do. But on paper, this feels like two very successful people who happened to discover they had been assigned the same table at a wedding.

Awkward. Just awkward. I don't have a sophisticated tennis explanation for this one. Sometimes you look at a doubles team and immediately think: Oh, that makes sense. I looked at Anisimova and Tien and thought: Huh. Perhaps that is precisely why they'll win the whole thing.

Now we're getting somewhere. The talent? Absurd. The star power? Off the charts.

The generational weirdness of it all? Magnificent. Venus Williams and Carlos Alcaraz playing mixed doubles together sounds like something a tennis fan would propose after three glasses of wine.

I love that it exists. I also cannot picture these two having coffee. What do they talk about? Carlos was born in 2003. By then, Venus had already won four Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal. Maybe they don't need to talk. Maybe Venus just tells him where to stand and Carlos says, “Yes, ma'am.” I'd watch that.

Another wonderfully improbable pairing. Shnaider and Ruud sounds like the result you get when Tennis Tinder goes down for maintenance and starts randomly matching everyone who happens to be online. Again, maybe it's brilliant. Ruud is vastly more versatile than people sometimes give him credit for, and Shnaider has exactly the kind of fearless game that could make her dangerous in this format.

But did anybody have these two on their mixed-doubles bingo card? No. Nobody did.

This is the one. Two gigantic personalities. Two gigantic games. Two people who are perfectly capable of treating an exhibition-style event as either the Wimbledon final or something they decided to do because dinner reservations weren't available until 9.

Possibly both within the same match. Can they take it seriously? Will they take it seriously? Will one of them decide they're taking it seriously while the other one absolutely isn't? There is $1 million waiting for the winning team, which should focus the mind.

Then again, I'm not entirely convinced $1 million is enough to make these two behave normally for two days. And thank God for that. There are also some combinations I genuinely like. Elina Svitolina and Gaël Monfils winning the whole thing would be tremendous. They're married, they obviously know each other rather well, and unlike some of these partnerships, nobody needed to exchange LinkedIn requests before walking onto the practice court.

More importantly, they could actually be a very good mixed doubles team. And keep an eye on Karolina Muchova and Jakub Mensik. Forgive me. They could Czech all the right boxes. I apologize. Actually, no. I don't. Muchova has precisely the sort of game I want in this format: touch, imagination, hands, variety and an ability to create points rather than merely blast through them. Mensik supplies plenty of firepower. That's a pairing that could make a very deep run.

But I'm coming back to Patten and Siniakova. There is something delightfully tennis about the whole thing. The sport creates a new event designed to bring attention to mixed doubles. It offers a gigantic purse. It attracts some of the biggest names in tennis. Then it makes the two best doubles players in the world qualify because their singles rankings aren't good enough.

You couldn't write it. Well, apparently you could. Somebody did. And maybe the joke will ultimately be on everyone else. Because while the singles stars are figuring out where to stand, who's taking the middle ball and precisely how much they're supposed to care about this thing, Patten and Siniakova already know how to play doubles.

They survived Monday. They looked good doing it. They even appeared to be getting slightly more comfortable with each other. By Wednesday, they may be making eye contact. Look out.