Kostyuk and Stearns spoil Williams sisters’ doubles reunion in Cincinnati

Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk and American Peyton Stearns beat Serena and Venus Williams 6-2, 1-6, 10-8 in the Cincinnati Open doubles draw, denying the sisters a win on an afternoon that was, by their opponents’ own account, more about the occasion than the result.

The Cincinnati doubles reunion effectively made up for a missed appointment at Wimbledon. Serena and Venus Williams had accepted a wild card to play women’s doubles together there in July, but Serena withdrew from the pairing after injuring her right knee during her first-round singles loss to Maya Joint – an injury serious enough that she later shared images on social media of fluid drained from the knee.

Nothing is settled for the Williams sisters at the US Open, in singles or doubles. Venus, unlike Serena, was also entered in the singles draw there, and lost in the first round 6-2, 6-2 to Colombian qualifier Emiliana Arango – her 13th straight singles defeat.

“wow, what an experience it is to be here”

Late night, Kostyuk and Stearns raced through the first set 6-2, playing the sharper, more assured tennis of the two teams. The Williams sisters answered emphatically in the second, closing it out 6-1 and pushing the match to a deciding tiebreak.

There, Kostyuk and Stearns held their nerve to close it out 10-8, ending the sisters’ reunion with a defeat but not, by the sound of it, dampening the day.

For Stearns, the match doubled as a homecoming. “It’s awesome playing with Marta here in my hometown,” she said after the match. “Maybe next time we can get a little louder for us.”

The noise, by all accounts, was overwhelmingly for the Williamses. Kostyuk described a crowd loud enough to drown out her own thoughts on court, but framed it as the reason she plays the game in the first place.

“When I was on the court I was like, wow, what an experience it is to be here,” she said. “I was watching them growing up and playing together, so it was such a privilege to share the court with them. Sometimes it was so loud today I couldn’t even hear myself. But that’s why we play tennis. So thank you so much, guys, for bringing the energy. It was incredible.”

What about the US Open ?

The only confirmed commitment across singles and doubles for either player is Venus’s mixed doubles entry with Alexander Bublik, announced August 3. Beyond that, everything remains open: Venus has no named women’s doubles partner and no confirmed singles wild card, despite speculation that one could follow. Serena has no confirmed singles wild card either, and there is no indication of whether she will play doubles at all, with or without her sister.

Serena’s coach, Rennae Stubbs, addressed those plans at Wimbledon shortly after the loss to Joint, though even her comments stopped short of any firm commitment. “Her intention is to keep playing; the US Open as well,” Stubbs said, adding that the timeline hinged entirely on her player’s recovery: “As long as physically she can go – and I’m hoping in a few weeks that’s the case – to get her back on the court and hitting balls.”