Serena and Venus Williams are set to reunite on the court at the U.S. Open in New York for the first time in four years. On Friday night, they will face Maya Joint and Hao-Ching Chan in the opening round of the women’s doubles tournament. Serena, age 44, came back to professional tennis this year following a four-year hiatus. She lost to Joint, a 20-year-old Australian, at Wimbledon. The match ended 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3, and Serena suffered a knee injury, which forced her to withdraw from a planned doubles match with Venus at the All England Club.
The sisters are gearing up for the U.S. Open, where they have previously won titles in 1999 and 2009. Their record stands at 27 wins and 7 losses across nine appearances. In 2022, they played together at the tournament and bowed out in the first round, which many believed would be Serena’s last match in Flushing Meadows.
Joint and Chan are ranked as the No. 14-seeded team. Doubles champion Bethanie Mattek-Sands remarked that facing the Williams sisters in front of a New York crowd at night could be intimidating, calling it a challenging scenario.
On Monday, Venus made her 26th singles appearance at Flushing Meadows but lost in straight sets to fellow American Sofia Kenin. The match, not starting until midnight, ended with Venus losing 6-2, 7-6 (6). This match possibly marks the end of her Grand Slam singles career, extending her singles defeat streak to 15, dating back to a victory in Washington in July 2025. Venus has now suffered six consecutive losses at the U.S. Open, with her last win in the first round in 2019.
Venus did not address her future in tennis directly. After the match, she shared her focus on recovery and the upcoming doubles match, avoiding speculation about her career’s end. Last week, Serena teamed up with Carlos Alcaraz in mixed doubles. They reached the quarterfinals but were eliminated by Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli after an initial match victory.