The Williams sisters will be a one-off show at the US Open this year.
Venus and Serena Williams, a pairing that has won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, lost their first-round match in the women’s doubles event on Friday, falling 6-3, 6-7, 7-6 in a three-hour thriller to the No. 14 seeded pair of Maya Joint and Hao-ching Chan.
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With Serena not participating in the singles draw and Venus losing in the first round to Sofia Kenin, they have no more matches to play at Flushing Meadows. Serena also participated in the mixed doubles event last week, winning and losing a match alongside Carlos Alcaraz.
Joint and Chan will face Nicole Fossa Huergo and Tamara Korpatsch in the second round.
Obviously, the Williams sisters didn’t display the form that won them two doubles titles at the US Open in 1999 and 2009, not with Venus at 46 years old and Serena at 44 and playing competitive tennis for only the past three months. That didn’t mean they didn’t have their moments. They built momentum as the match progressed and held a 5-0 lead in the decisive tiebreak, only for Joint and Chan to charge back in the face of a crowd heavily against them.
It was the kind of atmosphere we haven’t seen in a Grand Slam doubles match in years.
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Serena in particular seemed to struggle early, rarely landing a legitimate first serve and operating a step behind the pace of competition. She was broken on both of her service games in the first set, giving the seeded pair the early advantage.
The match got more competitive in the second set, with the teams remaining on serve all the way to the tiebreak, when the Williams sisters finally found the momentum they needed.
