A comeback four years in the making came to an end Friday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium in Queens. Doubles, the two-on-two format of professional tennis, was the format Venus and Serena Williams chose for their return to the US Open together. They lost to Taiwan's Chan Hao-ching and Australia's Maya Joint 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(10), in a match that ran just over three hours.
The reunion had been delayed once already this year. Serena, who is 44 and working her way back into professional tennis after several years away from the sport, had been scheduled to partner Venus at Wimbledon earlier this summer. She withdrew because of injury. Friday night in Queens was their first actual appearance together on a court.
Serena walked onto Arthur Ashe wearing a jacket that listed her US Open titles, the doubles championships she and Venus won together in 1999 and 2009 among them. The crowd gave both sisters a massive ovation before play began, and the vast majority of those in the stadium backed the Williams side loudly throughout the night. For context on who was on the other side of the net: Maya Joint is 20 years old. She was a toddler when the second of those doubles titles was collected. She and Chan Hao-ching had competed together only four times before Friday.
What the three sets looked like
Chan and Joint won the opening set 6-3, taking control after a fairly even start. The Williamses stabilized in the second set and pushed it to a seven-point tie-breaker, a short deciding game used when a set reaches six games apiece. They won that tie-breaker and kept the match alive.
The third and final set went to a tie-breaker as well. Venus and Serena took the first five points in a row. Joint and Chan answered with three straight, then fought their way into the lead. The Williamses had multiple chances to close the tie-breaker out, but the younger pair pushed back each time and eventually held on.
Play was interrupted briefly during the evening when a group of influencers caused a pause with a photoshoot in one of the stadium suites.
The crowd was behind the Williams sisters loudly from the first point to the last. In the end, a pairing only four events into its partnership beat two all-time greats of the sport, with the final score going 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(10) against the Williamses.