{"id":65879,"date":"2026-09-05T00:00:55","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/65879\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T00:00:55","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T00:00:55","slug":"a-superstar-doubles-duo-returns-and-theyre-both-named-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/65879\/","title":{"rendered":"A superstar doubles duo returns, and they’re both named Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 It was four years ago that Serena Williams announced, in a poignant Vogue essay,<\/a> that she was \u201cevolving away from tennis.\u201d The headline used the dramatic word \u201cfarewell,\u201d though Williams presciently noted she disliked the word \u201cretirement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever the wording, though, the message was clear: Daughter Olympia really wanted to be a big sister. And Williams knew she couldn\u2019t accomplish that and still play tennis the way she wanted. She could not, in other words, have it all.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething\u2019s got to give,\u201d Williams wrote, in words that resonated with many women, in sports and beyond.<\/p>\n

Well, Olympia got her little sister<\/a>. And now, she may be calling the shots again, because Mom is fulfilling another of Olympia\u2019s requests: that she play doubles again at the U.S. Open with Aunt Venus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to play with Auntie VeVe,\u201d 9-year-old Olympia told her, Serena Williams said this week on ABC\u2019s \u201cGood Morning America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe said it so clear and so calm,\u201d Williams said. \u201cShe\u2019s like my mom, she doesn\u2019t really talk a lot, but when she does talk, you listen. And I was like, \u2018OK.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And so Serena and Venus, a superstar doubles duo if ever there was one, will take the court Friday evening at the U.S. Open as a team, for the first time in four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuper excited about it,\u201d Venus said this week \u2014 after her singles match<\/a> wrapped up at the ungodly hour of 2 a.m.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a tournament where Serena won six singles titles, and Venus won 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 \u2014 which is enough to give fans goose bumps that this partnership is alive, at ages 44 and 46.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for them,\u201d said longtime tennis fan Nonie Green, of Arlington, Virginia, as she waited out a rain shower between matches earlier this week. \u201cFather Time is undefeated. But I\u2019m happy for them, even if they don\u2019t win.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a doubles team, the sisters won two of their 14 Grand Slam titles at the U.S. Open \u2014 in 1999 and 2009. They last played together at Flushing Meadows in 2022, losing in the first round. That was a few weeks after Serena penned her Vogue essay. (This year, they had to scrap their appearance at Wimbledon because of Serena\u2019s knee injury<\/a>, but they played in Cincinnati last month<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Now, fans are happy to witness any \u201cevolving\u201d back to tennis that the sisters care to do. The doubles match, unsurprisingly, has a marquee spot: the night session, in Arthur Ashe Stadium. With cocktails, a DJ and all the rest of a U.S. Open evening spectacle.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll face Maya Joint of Australia and Chan Hao-Ching of Taiwan. It was Joint who defeated Serena in their recent Wimbledon singles match. But whether the sisters win is not, for many, the point. The point is that they\u2019re back in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

Green, the fan from Virginia, did acknowledge that if it were up to her, at the same age, she would probably be watching, or commentating, rather than playing. But she said she loved how happy Serena Williams looked when playing mixed doubles with Carlos Alcaraz<\/a>, early in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Even more importantly: \u201cThey are good for women \u2014 and they are good for Black women,\u201d said Green, 58, who is Black.<\/p>\n

Green recalled something a former pastor had told her: \u201cEven the sky is not the limit. You can go beyond it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which sounds just like the lesson Serena Williams now wants to teach her daughters \u2014 and why, four years after stepping away from tennis, she is back, at least in doubles and probably, she said on \u201cGood Morning America,\u201d in singles again soon.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just really want my children to see me play at a different age,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The daughters \u2014 now two of them \u2014 will surely be watching on Friday night as their mom, and Auntie VeVe, take center stage.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

See AP\u2019s full tennis coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 It was four years ago that Serena Williams announced, in a poignant Vogue essay,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58137,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[190,271,11422,1301,408,84,2034,122,50,28,1646,463,747],"class_list":["post-65879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us-open","tag-california","tag-carlos-alcaraz","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-maya-joint","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-serena-williams","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-u-s-open-tennis-championships","tag-us-open","tag-venus-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}