Williams sisters fall in 3-set US Open thriller — SkimNews
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- Venus and Serena Williams lost their first-round US Open doubles match 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(10-7) to Hao-Ching Chan of Taiwan and Maya Joint of Australia, blowing a 5-0 lead in the match tiebreak at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
- The Williams sisters, now 46 and 44, reunited 25 years after facing each other in the 2001 US Open final and four years after their last Grand Slam doubles appearance together in 2022.
- Carlos Alcaraz chose to get a post-match treatment so he could stay and watch the Williams sisters rather than leave, telling reporters there was 'no better plan' than catching the doubles.
- Maya Joint also defeated Serena in three sets at Wimbledon this summer during Serena's return to singles; a subsequent knee injury forced the sisters to withdraw from their scheduled doubles at that event.
- The Williams sisters combined for 14 Grand Slam doubles titles plus Olympic gold in 2000, 2008, and 2012, and shared the No. 1 women's doubles ranking for eight weeks during their dominant era.
- The first-round doubles draw landed a prime-time Arthur Ashe night session — almost unheard of for that round — while the announcer introduced the sisters as 'two of the greatest athletes of all time.'
Why it matters: A first-round doubles match doesn't normally get Arthur Ashe Stadium's prime-time slot, yet the sisters drew one anyway — proof that their name still sells the building. For 22-year-old Joint and Chan, beating Venus and Serena after surviving a blown 5-0 tiebreak lead is a scalp the opponents will cite for years. For tennis, two women in their mid-40s are still capable of pushing elite competition to a third-set decider.
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