NEW YORK — “Welcome to the Williams Show," read one fan's sign in Arthur Ashe Stadium on Friday night, as Venus and Serena Williams took the court for their doubles match, a quarter-century after first facing each other in the 2001 U.S. Open final.
A quarter-century of playing pro tennis at a top level — at any level — is not a very common thing. And even more incredibly, the Williams sisters, now ages 46 and 44, showed they can still come agonizingly close to beating a top team that is cumulatively around half their age. In a three-set thriller that delighted a packed and vocal evening crowd, the sisters fell short only at the end, blowing a 5-0 lead in the final 10-point tiebreak to lose to Hao-Ching Chan of Taiwan and Maya Joint of Australia, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (10-7).
So it was indeed quite a thrilling show — even the sisters themselves, narrowly defeated, walked off with smiles on their faces, though they declined to speak to the media afterward.
“It was an amazing match,” Joint said. “They played really well, and I think just the atmosphere on the court ... I don’t think either of us has experienced quite like that before. And playing two legends of the game is just a super special moment that we might not get again.”
The hugely entertaining evening came four years after the sisters last played doubles together at Flushing Meadows. That match came just a few weeks after Serena Williams announced, in a poignant Vogue essay, that she was "evolving away from tennis." The headline used the dramatic word "farewell," though Williams presciently noted she disliked the word "retirement."
Whatever the wording, though, the message was clear: Daughter Olympia really wanted to be a big sister. And Williams knew she couldn’t accomplish that and still play tennis the way she wanted. She could not, in other words, have it all.
“Something’s got to give,” Williams wrote, in words that resonated with many women, in sports and beyond.
Well, Olympia got her little sister. And this year, her Mom was fulfilling another of Olympia's requests: that she play doubles again at the U.S. Open with Aunt Venus.
“You need to play with Auntie VeVe,” 9-year-old Olympia told her, Serena Williams said this week on ABC's “Good Morning America.”
“She said it so clear and so calm,” Williams said. “She's like my mom, she doesn't really talk a lot, but when she does talk, you listen. And I was like, ‘OK.’”
And so the sisters returned as a team to the tournament where Serena won six singles titles, and Venus two — one of them against Serena, who returned the favor the following year. That 2001 victory for the elder sister came a full quarter-century ago — which was enough to give fans goose bumps that this partnership is alive.
“I’m happy for them,” said longtime tennis fan Nonie Green, of Arlington, Virginia, as she waited out a rain shower between matches earlier this week. “Father Time is undefeated. But I'm happy for them, even if they don’t win.”
They indeed didn't win Friday's match, but they made it a close fight — thrilling the crowd with some vintage volleys as they took the second set tiebreak to force a decider, then came close to winning that set.
The unique nature of the evening was clear before a ball was struck, during player introductions. After a fairly routine introduction for Chan and Joint, the announcer moved on to the Williamses: “They’ve transformed and elevated the sport as we know it,” he said. “They’re two of the greatest athletes of all time.”
As a doubles team, the sisters won two of their 14 Grand Slam titles at the U.S. Open — in 1999 and 2009. They last played together at Flushing Meadows in 2022, also losing in the first round. (This year, they had to scrap their appearance at Wimbledon because of Serena's knee injury, but they played in Cincinnati last month.)
But victory or defeat does not seem, for many fans, the point. The point is that they're back in the spotlight.
Green, the fan from Virginia, recalled something a former pastor had told her: “Even the sky is not the limit. You can go beyond it.”
Which sounds just like the lesson Serena Williams now wants to teach her daughters — and why, four years after stepping away from tennis, she is back, at least in doubles and probably, she said on “Good Morning America,” in singles again soon.
“I just really want my children to see me play at a different age,” she said.
“I hope to show them that anything is possible. You can do anything at any age as long as you work hard and put some effort and dedication behind it.”
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