Williams Sisters Make Emotional Return at US Open
Under the Ashe lights, the old magic returned. Just not quite long enough.
Serena and Venus Williams walked back into prime time at the US Open on Friday night and, for long stretches, turned Arthur Ashe Stadium into a time machine. The serves cracked, the returns bit, the crowd roared. A first‑round doubles match, usually buried on the outside courts, had been handed a coveted night-session slot. Everyone knew why.
Carlos Alcaraz did, too.
“I think there is no better plan (than) to watch the doubles, the Williamses once again, while getting a treatment,” the defending men’s champion said after his own routine win. “I’m going to be ready for that.”
He wasn’t alone. New York had come to see the sisters again. It got drama, tension and, in the end, heartbreak.
A 5–0 Lead Slips Away
Facing Hao-Ching Chan and Maya Joint, Serena and Venus dragged the match into a deciding 10-point tiebreak after clawing back from 4-1 down in the third set. The fight was familiar. The finish was not.
They surged to a 5-0 lead in the match tiebreaker, the stadium rising with them, sensing the story it wanted. Then the air changed. The errors crept in. Both sisters double-faulted in the breaker, a jarring contrast to the brilliance they had produced late in the third set.
Chan and Joint, steady and opportunistic, pounced. The comeback that had thrilled Ashe dissolved into a 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (10-7) defeat.
For the first time since 2022, the Williams sisters were back on a Grand Slam doubles court. For a moment, it felt like nothing had changed. Then the scoreline reminded everyone of the years.
Serena is 44. Venus is 46. Serena returned to tennis only this year after stepping away in 2022; Venus has kept grinding on tour. Whether it was age, rust, nerves, or all three, the sharpest points deserted them at the worst possible time.
The U.S. Tennis Association said the sisters would not be available for comment. The silence only sharpened the sting.
A Storied Partnership, A Painful Night
The numbers of their partnership remain staggering. Fourteen Grand Slam doubles titles together. Olympic gold in 2000, 2008 and 2012. A shared run at No. 1 in women’s doubles. A 27-8 record now in 10 US Open appearances, with titles in 1999 and 2009.
For many, that first-round loss in 2022 looked like the final chapter. Serena left the sport with 23 Grand Slam singles titles and a farewell tour that felt definitive. Yet she returned this summer, and with it came the chance to see the sisters side by side again.
The results have been cruel. Serena lost to Joint earlier this summer at Wimbledon in three sets in her singles comeback. The sisters then had to withdraw from doubles there after Serena injured her knee. That pushed their Grand Slam reunion back to New York, the scene of so many of their shared triumphs.
Here, the pattern continued. Another match tiebreak, another narrow defeat. They had already lost in a breaker at the Cincinnati Open. Venus, too, exited early in singles in New York.
The aura is still there. The margins are not.
Sabalenka Tested, Alcaraz Strolls
While the Williams sisters wrestled with the past, two current standard-bearers for the sport kept their title defenses on track.
Aryna Sabalenka, chasing a third straight US Open crown, finally had to dig. The top seed beat Kamilla Rakhimova 6-3, 6-4, but the second set turned into a genuine contest, stretching to 54 minutes — a minute longer than her entire previous match.
She also had to deal with an unwelcome distraction: the smell of marijuana drifting in, something that visibly bothered her during the encounter. The focus held. The forehand held. Sabalenka moved through and will face Taylor Townsend in the round of 16 as she tries to become the first player since Serena Williams from 2012-14 to win three consecutive US Open titles.
On the men’s side, Alcaraz looked as if his four-month layoff with a right wrist injury belonged to someone else. The two-time champion brushed past Wu Yibing 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 to reach the last 16 again.
“To be honest I’m better than I thought,” he admitted afterward, a warning wrapped in understatement.
Next up is No. 20 seed Tommy Paul, who edged No. 15 Alexander Bublik in five sets. It’s the kind of matchup New York loves: a defending champion with flair against an American trying to crack the sport’s highest tier.
On a night that belonged emotionally to Serena and Venus, it was Alcaraz and Sabalenka who quietly kept the present and future of tennis moving. The sisters gave Ashe one more surge, one more roar, one more reminder of who built so much of this stage.
The question now is whether that was the last time they’ll do it together under the New York lights.
