Serena and Venus Williams get a double entry at the US Open
Serena and Venus Williams reenact their Sister Act doubles at the US Open.
The American siblings, who have won two of their 14 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles at Flushing Meadows, received a wild card from the US Tennis Association on Saturday, making it their first team tournament in more than four year.
Serena announced this month that she was preparing to end her playing career and, while she didn’t explicitly say the US Open would be her last event, she did indicate that it would be.
Serena, who turns 41 next month, and Venus, who turned 42 in June, won the women’s doubles championship at the US Open in 1999 – the year Serena won her first major singles trophy at 17 years in New York – and 2009.
Their other Grand Slam doubles triumphs: six at Wimbledon, four at the Australian Open and two at Roland-Garros. The most recent came at the All England Club in 2016.
They also won three gold medals in doubles at the Olympics.
That’s all aside from their combined total of 30 major singles trophies — 23 for Serena and seven for Venus.
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The sisters haven’t competed anywhere in doubles pairs since losing the French Open third round in June 2018.
Since then, each Williams has competed in two doubles events with other partners.
For Serena, one was with Caroline Wozniacki in January 2020, and the other with Ons Jabeur in June – who came to Eastbourne, England, during a pre-Wimbledon grass tune-up. This marked Serena’s return to competition after almost a full year away from touring.
She went 1-3 in singles in 2022, including a first-round defeat at Wimbledon in June, and said less than three weeks ago that « the countdown has begun » to the end of her time. as a professional gamer so she can focus on having another child and her business interests.
WATCH | CBC’s Jamie Strashin on Serena Williams’ last game in Canada:
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For Venus, the first doubles event since 2018 was with Harriet Dart in June 2019, and the other was with American teenager Coco Gauff at last year’s French Open. In singles, Venus was out of the tour for nearly a year before returning to a tournament in Washington this month.
Other women’s doubles teams receiving wild cards:
- Sophie Chang and Angela Kulikov
- Robin Montgomery and Coco Vandeweghe
- Katrina Scott and Elizabeth Mandlik
- Peyton Stearns and Ashlyn Kruger
- Hailey Baptiste and Whitney Osuigwe
- Clervie Ngounoue and Reese Brantmeier
Men’s doubles wildcards went to:
- Brandon Holt, who qualified in singles Friday and whose mother, Tracy Austin, won US Open singles titles in 1979 and 1981, NCAA champion Govind Nanda
- Ben Shelton and Chris Eubanks
- Nicholas Monroe and Keegan Smith
- Max Schnur and Hunter Reese
- Alex Michelsen and Sebastian Gorzny
- Robert Galloway and Alex Lawson
- Nicholas Godsick and Ethan Quinn
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