Williams sisters exit US Open doubles in first round

A three-hour match inside Arthur Ashe Stadium ended with Serena and Venus Williams walking off in a first-round US Open doubles loss, beaten by Maya Joint and Chan Hao-ching 6-3, 6-7(6), 7-6(7), according to The Guardian. The sisters trailed 1-4 in the deciding set, clawed back, and then built a 5-0 lead in the final-set tie-break before the match turned.

The return itself was the point of maximum attention. The Guardian reports that Serena Williams opted out of taking a singles wildcard because of a knee injury sustained at Wimbledon in July, leaving doubles as the stage for her latest appearance. Venus Williams, who had already lost in the singles first round to Sofia Kenin, came into the doubles with a singles run of 15 consecutive defeats, a streak that turns every additional match into a referendum on why she is still there.

The match also showed the practical constraints of a comeback when the sport has moved on. The Australian-Taiwanese pairing of Joint and Chan was seeded 14th, with Chan described by The Guardian as a former world No. 5 and Wimbledon finalist, and they played the decisive points better when the tie-break tightened. Serena’s serve and return timing were visibly compromised as the match wore on; The Guardian notes she ended up rolling in first serves by the final set and struggled to land returns, leaving Venus to carry more of the clean work.

For the tournament, the economics of attention were unmistakable: a first-round doubles match drew an increasingly intense crowd in the stadium that normally hosts the biggest singles nights. That kind of spotlight changes incentives for everyone involved. Opponents are handed a rare, high-value stage; tournament organizers get a premium event without needing a late-round berth; and the Williams brand continues to convert even diminished physical capacity into the sport’s most reliable form of demand.

The sisters had also reunited earlier in the summer at the Cincinnati Open and lost in the first round there too, and their previous doubles appearance before this week was at the US Open in 2022, which was supposed to be Serena’s final tournament. The pattern is less about a title chase than about controlled appearances: enough matches to matter culturally, not enough volume to expose the body to a full singles campaign.

On Friday night, the most concrete detail was the scoreboard: 5-0 up in the tie-break and still losing, a comeback performance that ended with the comebackers leaving in the first round.