by Dollita Okine, Face2FaceAfrica.com
Serena and Venus Williams faced a tough defeat at the Cincinnati Open during their first doubles match together in four years. The sisters were narrowly beaten 6-2, 1-6, and 10-8 by the duo Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns.
Their last appearance as a team was at the 2022 U.S. Open, marking Serena’s final tournament before she stepped away from tennis.
However, 44-year-old Serena began her comeback in doubles in June before playing singles as a wildcard at Wimbledon.
She suffered a knee injury in her first-round loss to Maya Joint at SW19, ruling her out of a scheduled doubles return with Venus.
“We’ve waited a long time to get back on the doubles court. Eventually, we find our way to each other,” Venus, 46, said, according to the BBC.
“We give each other so much grace and encouragement.
“This is our first time playing together in forever, and I think we’re really getting [into] our stride.”
Serena was playing her first match since Wimbledon, while Venus had recently competed in three hard-court events, playing both singles and doubles. The sisters struggled against Ukraine’s Kostyuk and American Stearns before overcoming what Serena described as “a little rust” in the second set.
They quickly fell behind 6-0 in the deciding 10-point tie-break but fought back admirably.
Serena produced two service winners to force the tie-break back on serve, but Kostyuk and Stearns held firm before Venus’s double fault gave them the victory, the BBC reported.
“Winning is obviously great,” Serena said, according to The Guarduan. “But I think in this position, [we’re] just having fun. I didn’t come out here to win this tournament. Obviously, I wanted to do the best I could do, but I think having fun and also just seeing how we are and how we feel out there. Being out there with the fans, too, is just really good, just to give them another opportunity to see us play, which is really cool.”
The sisters would need wildcards to compete in singles or doubles at the US Open, which starts on August 30.
Serena has only participated in one singles match since her comeback, calling her knee injury “a little traumatic experience, but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Venus has had more success in doubles, making it to the quarterfinals of the women’s tournament in New York last year, but she has lost her last 13 singles games.
According to The Guarduan, this year, Serena’s presence was felt throughout the grounds even before she made the well-known trip to Mason, Ohio. A plane with an advertisement banner featuring Serena endorsing Ro, a telehealth company that gives patients access to GLP-1 weight loss medications, flew over the tournament grounds for two days during the first round.
At their best, they shared three Olympic gold medals and 14 Grand Slam doubles championships.
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