Serena, Venus Williams get US Open doubles wild-card entry

NEW YORK (AP) — Serena and Venus Williams are getting their Sister Act back together for doubles at the U.S. Open.

The American siblings, who have won two of their 14 women's doubles Grand Slam titles at Flushing Meadows, were given a wild-card entry by the U.S. Tennis Association on Saturday, making it their first tournament as a team in more than four years.

Serena announced this month that she is preparing to end her playing career and, while she did not explicitly say the U.S. Open would be her final event, she has indicated it will be.

Serena, who turns 41 next month, and Venus, who turned 42 in June, won women's doubles championships at the U.S. Open in 1999 — the year Serena won her first major singles trophy at age 17 in New York — and 2009.

Their other Grand Slam triumphs in doubles: six at Wimbledon, four at the Australian Open and two at the French Open. The most recent came at the All England Club in 2016.

They've also won three doubles gold medals at the Olympics.

That's all aside from their combined total of 30 major trophies in singles — 23 for Serena, and seven for Venus.

The sisters have not competed anywhere in doubles as a pairing since losing in the third round of the French Open in June 2018.

Since then, each Williams has entered two doubles events with other partners.

For Serena, one was with Caroline Wozniacki in January 2020, and the other with Ons Jabeur this June — that came in Eastbourne, England, in a grass-court tune-up ahead of Wimbledon. That marked Serena's return to competition after nearly a full year away from the tour.

She has gone 1-3 in singles in 2022, including a first-round loss at Wimbledon in June, and said less than three weeks ago that “the countdown has begun" to the close