In what could be her first step on the road back to the U.S. Open, Serena Williams played tennis on U.S. soil for the first time in nearly four years Monday, teaming with her sister Venus in doubles at the Cincinnati Open. The sisters looked rusty in a first-round match against Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns, losing 6-2, 1-6, 1-0(8).
It was just Williams’ fourth match, and her first on a hard court, since she opened the second chapter of her illustrious career earlier this summer. Four years after saying she was “evolving away” from tennis after the 2022 U.S. Open, the 23-time Grand Slam champion began her comeback on grass in June, pairing with Canadian rising star Victoria Mboko to win a doubles match at Queen’s in London and ending her expedited grass-court season with a first-round singles loss at Wimbledon to the Australian Maya Joint in three tight sets.
The Williams sisters, who together have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, were supposed to team up for doubles at Wimbledon but had to withdraw before their first match because of a knee injury that Serena, 44, picked up playing Joint.
Serena Williams hasn’t yet announced her plans — for singles and either of the doubles events — for the U.S. Open later this month, but if she decides she is fit enough to play, the opportunity is there for her to follow the same playbook that she used ahead of Wimbledon and contest a couple of doubles matches before taking to the singles court. The U.S. Open is holding three wild-card entries open for its lid-lifting mixed doubles tournament, the field for which was announced Monday, which could allow Williams the opportunity to get more matches under her belt. The U.S. Open’s main draw singles event begins Aug. 31.
On Monday, Williams looked to be moving well in a first set that was understandably sluggish considering her lack of recent matches.
While Serena hasn’t played since Wimbledon, Venus, 46, has played both singles and doubles at tournaments in Washington, D.C., Toronto and Cincinnati as a wild-card entry. The seven-time Grand Slam champion has not won a match in more than a year — she beat Stearns last July at the D.C. Open in what was her return to the WTA tour after time away for health reasons.
Serena and Venus walked out to a packed crowd on the second-largest show-court in Cincinnati and were off to a rocky start, handing Stearns and Kostyuk a break for a 2-1 lead early in the first set. Both sisters’ reaction times were slow as they worked to find their rhythm, though both showed off their formidable power when given the chance. More than anything, they proved the championship mindset never fades.
The sisters shook off their poor first set, settled in, and won the first three games of the second as their timing and shot selection improved enough to take advantage of a slight dip from Stearns and Kostyuk.
In the 10-point tiebreak, which replaces a third set in doubles matches on the WTA and ATP tours, the Williams sisters trailed 6-0 before rallying to make it 8-5 after a pair of double faults from Kostyuk.
Then, it was Serena’s turn to serve. She stepped to the line as the crowd roared and delivered, hammering two unreturnable serves out wide to make it 8-7 before sending back a poor return to give away the next point. She then smashed an easy volley at the net to keep the sisters in the hunt, trailing 9-8. The match ended anticlimactically with a double fault from Venus Williams.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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