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Serena and Venus Williams fall in thrilling U.S. Open return after 4 years away
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- Serena and Venus Williams fall in thrilling U.S. Open return after 4 years away
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NEW YORK — Serena and Venus Williams , two of the greatest players of the modern era and the greatest pair of tennis siblings, may have finally met their match.
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It's the same one that fells all the greats. The passage of time.
In front of a crowd that swelled toward 24,000 on Arthur Ashe Stadium, looking for any excuse to explode, Maya Joint of Australia and Chan Hao-ching of Taiwan fended the sisters off just when they threatened to take the roof off.
Joint and Chan, the No. 14 seeds in the U.S. Open women's doubles, fought back from a 5-0 deficit in a 10-point match tiebreak and won 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(10-7) in the opening round of the competition.
For Joint, it was the second meeting with Williams this summer. She played her at Wimbledon in singles in June. She won that one, too.
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"It's awesome that I can say that I've beaten her twice," Joint said in a news conference after the win.
Serena and Venus, tennis trailblazers of the highest order, came agonizingly close to turning the star power and anticipation they brought to the year's final Grand Slam into victory. They still turned it into a magical night, one that everyone who witnessed it will remember, four years on from their last appearance in 2022, which marked Serena's "evolution away" from the sport.
There shouldn't be any shame in that. The numbers, aside from the ones counting up titles, medals and weeks on the top of the rankings, were against them. They have a combined age of 90, with Venus at 46. Serena is 44; soon to turn 45.
Their opponents were a little more than half that at 20 and 32, 52 combined.
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Even in doubles, where players in their 40s are far from unheard of, 90 to 52 is not a normal differential.
That said, just how normal everything felt was about the strangest thing Friday night.
Of course, the Williams sisters were playing a match under the lights on Arthur Ashe.
Of course, they packed out the stadium for doubles.
And of course everybody's eyes and attention were drawn all evening to the women from Compton, Calif. A dress for Venus, a skirt and a tank top for Serena, who warmed up in a silver Nike varsity jacket with all the years she won this tournament emblazoned on it.
It's a somewhat arriving crowd for the evening session on Arthur Ashe Stadium. Traffic, subways and commuter trains can slow a bit at rush hour. There are long lines for $23 honey deuces.
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So while there were vast swaths of empty seats when the Williams sisters took that familiar stroll, winding out of the tunnel from the corner of the court, each with a bright pink tennis bag over her shoulder, by the time the match had settled the seats were full and the fans were rapt.
"We expected a full stadium, everyone cheering for them, which it pretty much was that," Joint said. "The atmosphere is something that you're not really gonna get again with any other player."
The crowd came alive when Serena Williams crashed through those iconic swinging backhand volleys, thumping the ball through the court with a sound that no one else will ever quite match.
They roared when Venus Williams used every bit of her wingspan, stretching at the net for reflex volleys in the way that helped these sisters win 14 Grand Slam doubles titles and three Olympic gold medals together.
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Joint and Chan made sure to keep those chances to a minimum, stroking the ball from the back of the court on frozen ropes that passed the top of the net by inches. At the net, Chan covered the center window in a way the Williams sisters could never solve, unable to keep her honest with enough hot shots down the line.
Chan showed why she has won 22 WTA Tour doubles titles. Joint showed the mental strength and resilience that saw her rebound from another Williams comeback, in singles at Wimbledon earlier this summer, to claim a victory over a player she idolized as a child.
And yet, under pressure late in the second set, the Williams sisters played through it as they nearly always did. Three times, they found themselves within a point of sending the night to a decider. Joint blasted an ace to save one. On the other two, the sisters took turns in being a step slow on reflex volleys.
That meant that they had to play a tiebreak. More jeopardy. They grabbed an early edge, but two errors gave the lead back to Chan and Joint. Serena Williams ripped a forehand down the doubles alley that drew the sisters even as they changed sides. Crunch time had arrived.
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A point later Serena jumped on a return and stuffed a backhand volley. A net battle gave them two more chances to get to the deciding set. On the second, at 6-5, the Serena Williams serve somehow disappeared. A double fault, and they changed sides once more.
They would get a sixth set point. Thirty seconds later, Joint sent an overhead off the court. Cue what the sisters hoped would be just the first explosion.
Since the 1990s, the Williams sisters have made just about every big tennis court in the world their own.
In New York Friday night, they set the scene for another impresario performance, on a stage they have owned so many times.
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It came when it seemed impossible. Down 4-1 in the deciding set, they came alive like it was the early 2000s, hammering balls at opponents who couldn't get their strings to connect with the bullets they tried to fend off.
At 4-4 in the third set, they had three shots to get a chance to serve out the match. Joint came up with big serves to escape the biggest trouble.
No bother. That served to click the drama a few notches higher, just the way team Williams has always liked it.
After nearly three hours, Serena and Venus appeared to have their opponents right where they wanted them — a 10-point tiebreak to win the night. Now their balls were finding open blue on their favorite court. They built a 5-0 lead. Halfway there.
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Joint and Chan pushed back to get within two. But then Joint double-faulted, and the sisters had a cushion of their own again.
Not for long. Venus double-faulted and sent a forehand long and it was back on serve.
Two points later they were behind again. Another double fault from Serena. That old reliable stroke just not there when she needed it to be.
It's the thing that every player says is the last thing to come back, the ability to hit the big shot in the biggest moment. The Williams sisters did just about everything Friday night. They just could not quite do that.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
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