Wimbledon was supposed to bring them back together. Serena Williams’ knee had other ideas.
Cincinnati finally got the sisters onto the same side of the net again. Now comes the reunion that matters most.
Serena and Venus Williams have received a wildcard into the 2026 US Open women’s doubles draw, giving one of the most successful partnerships in tennis history its first Grand Slam appearance together since this same tournament four years ago.
And calling them successful hardly does it justice.
Serena and Venus have won 22 doubles titles together, including 14 Grand Slams, and are a perfect 14-0 in major doubles finals. They also collected three Olympic doubles gold medals as a team. Their US Open titles came 10 years apart, in 1999 and 2009.
The numbers turn what might otherwise look like a nostalgic wildcard into something rather more interesting.
These are not two famous singles players having a little fun in doubles.
They are one of the greatest doubles teams the sport has seen.
Wimbledon Was Supposed to Be the Reunion
The Williams sisters had already planned their Grand Slam comeback at Wimbledon this summer.
Serena returned to competition at Queen’s Club in June after nearly four years away from the tour, winning her first match alongside Victoria Mboko before the pair had to withdraw when Mboko suffered a knee injury in singles. Serena then played with Karolina Muchova in Berlin.
Wimbledon was meant to take the comeback another step.
Serena accepted a singles wildcard and was also due to play doubles alongside Venus, reportedly after a little encouragement from daughter Olympia. But the plan unraveled when Serena injured her knee during her first-round singles defeat to Maya Joint and withdrew from doubles before the sisters could play.
For a partnership with so much history, it was a particularly frustrating false start.
Their six Wimbledon doubles crowns form the biggest part of that 14-major haul. Their last Grand Slam doubles title came there in 2016, when they completed another championship run without losing a major final for the 14th time.
New York now gives them the Grand Slam reunion Wimbledon could not.
Cincinnati Became the Dress Rehearsal
They did not have to wait until the US Open to finally share a court again.
Serena and Venus reunited at the Cincinnati Open, their first competitive doubles match together since the 2022 US Open. Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns beat them in the opening round, but simply getting the partnership restarted removed one of the uncertainties that had surrounded Wimbledon.
Their last major doubles appearance also came in New York.
At the 2022 US Open, they were beaten in the first round by Linda Noskova and Lucie Hradecka. Until Cincinnati this month, that remained the last time the sisters had competed together anywhere.
Four years later, they return to the same Grand Slam with a very different backdrop.
Venus, now 46, is also in the US Open singles draw after receiving a wildcard. Serena, 44, will not play singles, but her New York stay has already become considerably busier than expected.
Serena’s US Open Comeback Has Already Delivered a Show
Before the women’s doubles wildcard was announced, Serena had already made her first competitive US Open appearance since 2022.
Partnering Carlos Alcaraz in the revamped mixed doubles event, she reached the quarterfinals after the pair won their opening match against doubles specialists Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool.
Their run ended against Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli, 5-4(4), 4-1, but Serena’s return became one of the central stories of Fan Week.
There was some history tucked into that appearance too. Serena won the US Open mixed doubles title with Max Mirnyi back in 1998, meaning her return came 28 years after that championship.
Now she moves from a new partnership with one of today’s biggest stars to the partnership that helped define a generation.
Fourteen Grand Slam Finals, Fourteen Titles
That record is what makes this wildcard more than a sentimental reunion.
Serena and Venus did not play doubles as regularly as many specialists, but when they entered the biggest tournaments together, they were devastating.
Their 14 Grand Slam titles are spread across all four majors: six at Wimbledon, four Australian Opens, two Roland Garros titles and two US Opens. They never lost a Grand Slam women’s doubles final together.
They also won Olympic doubles gold in 2000, 2008 and 2012, compiling one of the most unusual resumés in the history of the discipline: two all-time great singles careers running alongside a doubles partnership that was itself historically dominant.
That context changes the question heading into New York.
It is not simply whether Serena and Venus can produce another memorable moment.
It is how much of that extraordinary partnership is still there.
Wimbledon never gave us the answer. Cincinnati offered the first glimpse.
Now, four years after their last Grand Slam doubles match and 27 years after their first US Open doubles title, Serena and Venus Williams are back together in New York.
The nostalgia will be unavoidable.
But with a 14-0 record in Grand Slam finals behind them, treating this as merely nostalgia would undersell what they once were together.