(August 28, 2025) FLUSHING, NY – Playing doubles at the US Open for the first time in more than ten years, 45-year-old Venus Williams teamed up with 22-year-old Leylah Fernandez on Thursday afternoon to beat the No. 6 seeds, Lyudmyla Kichenok and Ellen Perez, 7-6 (4), 6-3.
The team rallied from 2-5 down in the first set to get the win.
“I don’t think we really had any strategy going into the match playing against such an experienced team, but I feel like very confident with both of our games,” said the Canadian Fernandez, the 2021 US Open singles finalist. “At 2-5 I think we kind of figured it out a little bit more and just enjoyed our time on court.”
At the end of match, Williams did her queenly wave while twirling, “the best partner I ever played with…0utside of Serena, “ she said both on court and in a post-match interview.
“I was shocked,” Fernandez said laughingly. “It was like probably the biggest compliment I ever got, so thank you, Venus. Oh, man. I feel like those are big shoes to fill at the moment.”
“Thank you, you guys. Thank you for showing up for us,” Williams said after the match.
Williams hadn’t won a women’s doubles match at the US Open since 2014, when she and sister Serena made it to the quarterfinals. The year 2016 marked the last time the sisters won a major doubles title together, and that came at Wimbledon. They won 14 doubles majors in total.
Williams came out ion a white tennis dress inspired by something Althea Gibson used to wear.
“Everything this year is inspired by Althea, right?,” she said. “It’s a big year, and she’s an American champion. I’m so happy that we’re paying homage to her, that people are getting to know her and her accomplishments, what that means for us, and how inspiring it is for every single person. I have to say probably everything I wear.”
So what did it feel like for Williams, who had not played doubles for about a decade:
“I always tell people, I’m not good at doubles. No one believes me.
“You know, I think traditionally doubles players are crossing and moving, and I don’t necessarily do all of that, but push comes to shove, I’ll do what I have to. I’m a singles player, so of course, when I walk out there, I actually tell myself just to play singles and try that method, and I try not to be something that I’m not.
“To be honest, it’s an area that I’m not that comfortable in being on the doubles court, but I think you get to some point in the match where you stop thinking about it, and then you just zone.”
“It (doubles) was absolutely not a side project,” Williams said later in her news conference. “We mostly played at the majors for a reason. We wanted to win majors. That was important to us.
“So, yes, it’s not a side project, but at the same time, did I practice doubles? Not really. After you play a lot more, you get better at some of those doubles sort of strategies, but in the beginning if you’re on the singles court so much, you come as a singles player. So then I focused on being the best singles player I can be in doubles until those moves start to become more automatic.
“So when we were playing a lot more back in the day, then, yes, I was doing a little bit more in terms of playing more like a doubles player. So I think with some luck, we’ll stay, maybe win another round, and just keep getting better at the doubles..”
She had been off the tour for 16 months until returning to the tour by playing singles and doubles at Washington in July.
Williams lost in the first round of mixed doubles and singles, then was awarded a wild card for women’s doubles.
“I prepared the best that I could,” she said. “At the end of the day, once you walk on a match court, as much as you might even tell yourself it’s not different, it is.
“And I feel like with the amount of matches I’ve played, I’m progressing very quickly. I didn’t have to come back to play tennis (laughing), but eventually I found my way back.”
“I’m used to being the big sister, so I’m kind of, like, asking her what she wants. It’s important for her to feel comfortable,” Williams said.
“Theoretically, I have the more experience, but she’s been playing a lot more matches, so maybe that makes us neck and neck, right, in terms of how we can compete.
“But I think we just had to see what happened, right, because you never know what’s going to happen in a match and you have to adjust. Once we got down, then I feel like we just put our foot on the gas.”
“I was like a kid on Christmas day just jumping around.” Fernandez said when she got the call that Williams would partner with her for doubles. “I was so happy. I don’t think I stopped smiling for the whole night and even in the morning. I was just super happy and excited.
“I’m just glad that we got the chance to play together and move on to the next round.”
