Serena and Venus Williams made an emotional return to US Open women’s doubles on Friday, taking Australia’s Maya Joint and Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching to a deciding-set tiebreak before losing in the first round.
Joint and Chan won 6–3, 6–7(6), 7–6(10–7) in just over three hours. A crowd of about 23,000 at Arthur Ashe Stadium backed the American sisters as they recovered after losing the opening set and forced the contest into a decider.
The Williams pair had not played doubles at the US Open since 2022. They returned to competition together in Cincinnati in August and had also been due to reunite at Wimbledon before withdrawing after Serena suffered a knee injury in singles.
Joint, 20, had beaten Serena in singles at Wimbledon earlier this year. After Friday’s match, she described facing the sisters as a special experience and said both had been childhood idols.
The sisters’ record places the occasion beyond an ordinary first-round match. They have won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together, including US Open championships in 1999 and 2009, as well as three Olympic doubles gold medals.
They also hold 30 Grand Slam singles titles between them. Neither player indicated after the match whether they plan to compete together again, leaving the next chapter of their doubles return uncertain.
