Williams Sisters Face Off Against Familiar Foe in US Open Doubles

NEW YORK – The Williams sisters are back on Arthur Ashe soil together, and fate has handed them a storyline fit for prime time.

Serena and Venus Williams will open their US Open women’s doubles campaign against Maya Joint and Hao-Ching Chan, the United States Tennis Association announced, a first-round matchup loaded with recent history and unanswered questions.

Because Joint isn’t just another name on the draw sheet. She’s the 18-year-old who stunned Serena at Wimbledon earlier this summer, winning their first-round singles encounter and watching as the 44-year-old American hobbled off with a knee injury that forced her to pull out of doubles with Venus. That abrupt ending at the All England Club left a sour taste. New York offers a chance, not for revenge exactly, but for a reset.

The Williams sisters arrive as wild cards in a tournament they once bent to their will. They have lifted the US Open doubles trophy twice, their power and swagger long a defining feature of the night sessions in Queens. Those days feel distant now, yet the aura remains. Every time they walk onto a court together, it still feels like an event.

Their last doubles appearance at this tournament came in 2022, a nostalgic run that never really got going. Linda Nosková and Lucie Hradecká stopped them in the first round, a reminder that even legends can’t bluff their way past sharp, fearless opponents on the tour.

Since then, opportunities to see them on the same side of the net have been rare. They reunited in Cincinnati on August 17, stepping into the Cincinnati Masters draw for their first doubles match together since that 2022 US Open. The script almost turned in their favor. They pushed Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns to the brink in a tense, high-energy first-round battle, only to fall just short. The result underlined the reality of this stage of their careers: the instincts are still there, but the margins are thinner than ever.

Both sisters have already had a taste of Flushing Meadows this year.

Serena, back in the city that has framed so much of her legacy, paired up with Carlos Alcaraz in mixed doubles and rode the crowd’s energy into the quarterfinals. It was loose, entertaining tennis, the kind of cross-generational showcase that only a major can deliver.

Venus’ trip through the singles draw was far harsher. She ran into Sofia Kenin in the opening round and exited early, another tough chapter in a late-career stretch filled with demanding matchups and unforgiving scorelines.

So the doubles court becomes their shared stage again, one more time, against a pair who know exactly what they’re walking into. Joint brings the confidence of that Wimbledon win over Serena. Chan, a seasoned doubles specialist, supplies the experience and composure that can unsettle even the biggest names if the rallies stretch and the patterns hold.

At the top of the women’s doubles field, the hierarchy looks more conventional. Taylor Townsend and Kateřina Siniaková lead the draw as the No. 1 seeds, their status a product of consistent results and a game built for the format. They have unfinished business in New York after falling in last year’s final to Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe.

Those two champions have split paths this time. Routliffe lines up with Aldila Sutjiadi as the No. 9 seeds, a pairing that will be circled as a threat deep in the draw. Dabrowski, meanwhile, teams with Luisa Stefani, and that combination carries the No. 2 seed – a clear signal of the respect they command in locker rooms and seedings meetings alike.

The modern doubles elite will chase the title with all the usual precision and intensity. Yet, as so often in New York, the story that cuts through the noise belongs to Serena and Venus.

They are no longer the favorites. They might not even be contenders on paper. But they have a first-round date with a young player who altered Serena’s summer and a partner who knows how to exploit the smallest crack in a legend’s armor.

On a hard court they once ruled, under lights they helped make famous, we’re about to find out how much they still have left to say.