Just one game into the family reunion of the decade, Venus Williams launched herself inside the baseline in her single-minded pursuit of a puffball second serve. For a brief moment, grandstand stadium at the Cincinnati Open had been transported back 15 years. Williams pounded her forehand return directly at the right hip of her opponent Marta Kostyuk, instantly eliciting gasps from the audience as she snatched the point.
Back when the Williams sisters spent their spare time racking up grand slam titles for fun, this is how they dealt with most adversaries. In the end, Venus and Serena’s first doubles match in four years, and just their second in the past decade, ended in a rollercoaster 6-2, 1-6, 10-8 defeat to Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns, another wildcard pair and two formidable singles players. For once, the result did not seem to matter.
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.” Even before she made the familiar trip to Mason, Ohio, Serena’s presence had been felt across the grounds this year.
For two days during the first round, a plane circled above the tournament grounds carrying an advertisement banner of Serena endorsing Ro, a telehealth company that provides patients with access to GLP-1 weight loss drugs. This match also quietly underlined how dysfunctional professional tennis can still be. Despite the massive anticipation surrounding the return of the Williams sisters – almost certainly the only time this audience will get to see them again – the rigid nature of television contracts meant the match was relegated to grandstand court, the tournament’s 5,000-seater second court.
Every seat was full, with fans streaming out of the entrances and crowding the winding staircase from the adjoining stadium court, which holds 11,600 fans, to catch a glimpse of two American greats. For all the goodwill, excitement and anticipation at the simple joy of seeing them together again, early on the spectacle itself was rough. After Venus held in the opening game, they conceded five consecutive games to trail 1-5.
Serena’s lack of matchplay was the most obvious issue, with the younger Williams struggling to find her timing on her groundstrokes or rhythm on her usually immaculate serve. As Serena’s rust gradually fell away, Venus was largely solid, pairing crisp shotmaking with some elite reflex volleys. By the start of set two, everything was flowing.
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