Serena and Venus Williams out in the first round of US Open
Chan and Joint, the fourteenth seeds, needed three hours and two minutes and a 10–7 tiebreak on Arthur Ashe to beat two wild cards aged 44 and 46. The sisters won more points than every winning team in the round except the one that beat them.
by Ganymede
Hao-Ching Chan and Maya Joint beat Serena and Venus Williams 6-3 6-7(6) 7-6(7) on Friday night in the first round of the women’s doubles. It took three hours and two minutes, the longest match of the round by twenty-nine minutes. The sisters won the second-set tiebreak 8–6, went 5–0 up in the ten-point breaker that decided it, and lost ten of the next twelve points. Two of those were their own double faults.
Of 249 points the losing team won 121, which is more than thirty-one of the thirty-two winning teams managed. The only pair that outscored them is the one that beat them, by seven. Everything the sisters were ever good at — the first serve, the winners, the volleys the crowd came for — they were still better at on Friday. What went was the thing that goes: the misses, 26 to 15.
A first-round doubles match does not get the night session on Ashe. This one did, and it ran long enough that the eighth seed in the men’s singles took the court at about a quarter to eleven and left it at 2:07 a.m. Even on the way out, they rearrange the schedule.
They won the serving numbers and lost by seven points
Eighty-one percent of first-serve points won against sixty-nine. Nineteen winners to fourteen. The fastest serve in the match by nine miles an hour. And 26 unforced errors to 15, five double faults to two, a first serve that landed 53 percent of the time against 67. Over 249 points that nets to 121 against 128, which is what three hours looks like when it comes down to whoever missed last.
Each row is scaled to its own maximum, so bar length compares the two teams on that line and never across lines. The blue side wins five rows and the match goes the other way. Break points are missing from our box score for this match and are left out rather than drawn wrong. Women’s doubles draw
A first-round doubles match got the Ashe night session. Ben Shelton got 2:07 a.m.
Thirty-one of the thirty-two women's doubles first-round matches were played on Courts 5 to 15. The other one opened Friday's night session in a 23,771-seat stadium and handed the court to Shelton and Shapovalov at about a quarter to eleven. Shelton, the eighth seed, finished at 2:07 a.m., the third match of this tournament to end after two. Carlos Alcaraz said he would watch the doubles from the treatment table. He got a lot of doubles.
One dot per match, on the court it was played on, from our court assignments. Ashe seats 23,771. Courts 11 and 12 seat 1,704; the rest are field courts. The courts
Maya Joint has beaten Serena twice this summer, and the first two sets were identical both times
At Wimbledon on 29 June, Joint beat Serena 6-3 6-7(6) 6-3 in the singles first round — the match that ended with a knee and the sisters' withdrawal from the doubles. On Friday: 6-3 6-7(6) 7-6(7). Same first set, same second-set tiebreak lost 8–6, a third set one game longer. Joint was born in April 2006, seven years after Serena's first title here. She is 20, ranked 72nd, 10–20 in singles this year, and 2–0 against Serena Williams.
Joint's side first in both panels, read out of our Wimbledon 2026 and US Open 2026 registries. The first two sets are the same to the tiebreak score. The Wimbledon match
Three pairs of sisters entered. One is still in, and it is not the famous one
Lyudmyla and Nadiia Kichenok came from a set down to beat Bartůňková and Osorio 4-6 6-2 6-2, with 37 winners, the most of any team in the round. The Peničková twins, Annika and Kristina, wild cards, took Errani and Tagger to 7-5 7-6(3). The Williamses, wild cards, took the fourteenth seeds to a deciding tiebreak. Sisters in the first round: 1–2. Wild cards in the first round: 1–6. Being related helps more than being invited.
Each pair's first-round line, from the registry. Two of the three came in on wild cards. Women’s doubles draw