Tennis great Serena ended her playing career with 23 majors – the most won by a woman in the Open Era – while sister Venus sits on eight with the 44-year-old insisting she has not retired despite playing only two matches in 2024.
They faced each other 16 times in singles at Grand Slams from 1998 until 2022 and Serena edged that stat 11-5. Nine of their meetings at the majors came in finals with Serena winning that H2H 7-2.
After Venus won their first-ever major final at the 2001 US Open, Serena then won five consecutive Slam finals (two at Wimbledon and one each at the other majors).
Serena believes Venus would have won double-digit Grand Slams while she herself would have had 30 had the Williams sisters not played against each other at the four Slams.
“We had this rule that if we played against each other before the final, we had to win the title. I think Venus would have had a minimum of 15 Grand Slams if we didn’t play. I would have had 30,” Williams said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit.
The Williams sisters changed the face of tennis as they broke barriers and dominated the sport with also both reaching No 1 in the WTA Rankings while they are also No 1 and No 2 in the WTA all-time career prize money earnings list.
With the timeline of their careers roughly the same, it meant they went through a lot of battles together and while they had their ups and downs, their close relationship was also key to their success.
“There was no separation at all. Looking back, I don’t know how we dealt with that. We were so close, we grew up so close. My family was like, ‘No fighting, you girls are always going to be sisters and that’s that,’” the 43-year-old Serena said.
The American added: “But we actually lived together until I got married, which wasn’t that long ago. We just always lived together. I think that helped our relationship.
“We had to figure out a way to work it out. We had to communicate, you know, we had to have those difficult conversations. I think we just, without even realising it, leaned into that. As long as I was winning.”
