Venus Williams Calls Out Serena After Her Sister Misses Her US Open Matches: ‘My Message Is…’
It’s all sisterly love! Venus Williams playfully shaded her former doubles partner and sister Serena during the US Open. The 45-year-old tennis champ dominated the court with her new partner 22-year-old Leylah Fernandez, but she had some words for the tennis retiree.
After advancing to the quarterfinals the Sept. 1 match, Venus was asked about her sister’s attendance at the US Open and how she reacted to her new doubles partner. “She’s so happy for Leylah and I and she’s given us advice,” she said during an on-court interview with ESPN. “We just need her in the [player’s] box. My message is: Serena, you need to show up.”
Days before the matches started, Serena made a playful TikTok where she showed off her sister and Leylah playing on the court. In the video, she sarcastically rolls her eyes at the TV and makes a grinning face. The champ captioned the post, “When you see your sister @Venus Williams has a new doubles partner @leylahanniefernandez and you are really happy she’s winning with someone else…”
Though it’s always sisterly love. Serena posted a carousel of her sister playing on the court on Instagram, “Strength, courage, determination, class, perseverance, inspiration… there’s not enough words to describe how proud I am of you @VenusWilliams P.S. I hope to be like you.”
The 23-time Grand Slam winner retired from playing tennis in September 2023 to focus on her family. “I’d travel to tournaments with Venus as her hitting partner, and if there was an open slot, I’d play,” she wrote in her retirement essay in Vogue. “I followed her around the world and watched her. When she lost, I understood why, and I made sure I wouldn’t lose the same way. That’s how I started to move so fast up the rankings, because I learned the lessons from Venus’s losses instead of the hard way, from my own.”
She continued, “But if I hadn’t been in Venus’s shadow, I would never be who I am. When someone said I was just the little sister, that’s when I got really fired up.”
Meanwhile, Venus had a steady rhythm with her new doubles partner. “Our energy really matched each other in terms of determination, in terms of not giving up, in terms of really still just focused and dialed in in every single thing,” Williams said of her partnership with Fernandez. “That felt amazing because I never really played with a partner — outside of Serena, obviously — who had that kind of mentality, so it was really fun.”
Venus’ run on the US Open came to an end shortly after her remarks. On Sept 2, she and Leylah lost their quarterfinal match to the No. 1 seeds, Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova.
