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Serena Williams and Venus Williams are set to make their Cincinnati Open doubles debut this month after being awarded a wild card on Monday, marking their return to doubles action for the first time since 2022.
The Williams sisters have won 14 major doubles titles, including six at Wimbledon, plus three Olympic gold medals.
They last played doubles together at the 2022 U.S. Open, where they lost to Czechs Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova.
Last month, the sisters had to withdraw from the doubles draw at Wimbledon as Serena, 44, dealt with a knee injury.
The American’s highly anticipated return to Grand Slam tennis after four years away was ended at Wimbledon in a first-round loss to Australian youngster Maya Joint in the singles.
Venus, 46, has received a singles wild card for the August 11 to 23 tournament in Cincinnati. Serena’s return has moved quickly since she announced it on June 1. She played her first match in nearly four years on June 9 at the Queen’s Club Championships in London, partnering Victoria Mboko in doubles.
Her singles comeback followed at Wimbledon, where she lost in the first round to Maya Joint of Australia. A knee injury sustained during that tournament forced the sisters out of the Wimbledon doubles draw before they could play a point together.
Cincinnati is the second attempt at that reunion, and the timing carries weight. It is the final WTA 1000 event before the US Open, and it sits directly on the ramp to Flushing Meadows. Serena has not entered the US Open singles draw. She has not ruled it out either. She remains one title short of the all-time record of 24 major singles championships.
Venus arrives in Ohio with the deeper local history. She owns a 12-10 career record at the tournament, with a semifinal run in 2012 and a quarterfinal in 2019. She turned 46 in June. Her career includes 49 singles titles, seven majors and the 2000 Olympic gold medal, and she spent 11 weeks at No. 1 in the WTA rankings. Her first WTA Tour match came in 1994.
The sisters headline a wild-card class that leans heavily American. Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion and a Cincinnati semi-finalists in 2013, returns to the tournament for the first time since 2023. Taylor Townsend, who won the Cincinnati doubles title in 2023, also received a singles wild card after reaching her first WTA Tour singles final in Austin and climbing back inside the top 100.
Caroline Dolehide, a two-time WTA finalist making her third Cincinnati singles appearance, and Elvina Kalieva, a New York City native who reached her first WTA semifinal last week in Memphis, completed the American contingent. Two international players rounded out the singles wild cards. – (Reuters)
Online Reporter