Serena on Top Loss and Tennis vs. Pickleball

By Richard Pagliaro | @Tennis_Now | Tuesday, October 1, 2024
Photo credit: Clive Brunskill/Getty

Serena Williams knows how it feels to share the court with family.

The 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena was pregnant when she beat older sister Venus Williams to win the 2017 Australian Open championship.

Together, the Williams sisters won 14 major doubles titles and three Olympic gold medals in doubles.

Still, Serena says her top memory of dynamic doubles with Venus isn’t a win, it’s a loss. And not just any loss.

In a new interview with Glamour Serena Williams Debunks Every Tennis Myth, Serena shares her top doubles memory: The day Venus lost it on court prompting Serena to fits of uncontrollable laughter.

“Obviously winning the Olympic gold [in doubles] three times was really cool,” Serena told Glamour. “One of my best memories in doubles is actually us losing and Venus just losing her mind on the court because she’s so calm.

“And I was laughing the whole time. And we lost like four points because I couldn’t stop laughing.”

Playing beside her older sister was both a blessing and a burden, Serena says.

“Honestly, I think for me doubles may have been a little bit harder [than singles] because I never wanted to let my partner down, which was Venus,” said Serena, who also partnered James Blake to lead Team USA to the Hopman Cup and was a stalwart Fed Cup (now Billie Jean King Cup) competitor. “Like in singles, if you make a mistake, it’s one thing, it’s on you. But if you make a mistake in doubles, it’s like: Oh, I’m letting my partner down.

“That was a lot of pressure for me because I never wanted to let her down.”

The Williams Sisters famously pulled off the Verena Slam, sweeping four consecutive Grand Slam doubles championships—the 2009 Wimbledon, 2009 US Open, 2010 Australian Open and 2010 Roland Garros—to hold all four major doubles crowns simultaneously.

Venus and Serena captured 14 major doubles championships together, including six Wimbledon doubles titles.

One reason why they won Wimbledon four more times than their home Slam, where the sisters won two US Open doubles titles, is simple, says Venus. US Open schedule-makers often put Williams sisters doubles matches on at night, which Venus said reduced their rest and recovery time for singles.

Consequently, the Williams sisters wound up pulling the plug on US Open doubles.

“We never played as much at the US Open,” Venus Williams said on her YouTube channel. “One of the reasons was because they would give us really difficult schedules.

“So they would put us to play a night match in doubles. And then we’d have to turn around—you’re going all the way to Queens—and back to the city. You don’t finish until midnight. Turn around next day and have to play a singles match and a doubles match.

“[The US Open] never gave us favorable scheduling for doubles. So we never got to play often [at the US Open] because you physically can’t do that….

“Honestly, the scheduling cost us sometimes in singles and in doubles because of the way they would schedule us. So we just had to stop playing [doubles at the US Open] as much.”

Responding to Glamour viewers questions, Serena offers her views on:

*Skirts vs. Shorts

*Why Grunting works

*The off-court places you’ll see her wearing tennis gear

*Playing Wii Tennis

Serena Williams, who received a rousing standing ovation from Arthur Ashe Stadium fans on her return to the US Open earlier this month, also states her views on tennis vs. pickleball. Serena says most good tennis players can become good pickleball players, but she questions if the reverse is true.

“I don’t play pickleball. But I think if you play good tennis you could probably play pickleball really well,” Serena says. “If you do play pickleball, you’re probably not going to be as good at tennis. Because tennis is a different sport.

“Like you can go from tennis to pickleball. I don’t think you can necessarily go from pickleball to tennis. So definitely a myth there.”