After losing to the Czech’s duo Lucie Hradecka and Linda Noskova in the US Open opening round, Venus and Serena Williams will not be leaving with grand slam doubles title.
Four years after their final grand slam performance as a team and six years after winning the most recent of their 14 victories, the sisters made the decision to give it one last go.
However, the old magic was not quite there, as they lost to the Czech team of Lucie Hradecka, 37, and Linda Noskova, 17, in a 7-6 (7-5) 6-4.
Just like for Serena’s two singles victories so far this week, an announced sell-out crowd of 23,859 attended. However, on Thursday, the crowd was not quite as raucous as they had been for those other night matches.
It was the second early exit of the week for Venus, who lost her singles opening-round to World No. 49 Alison Van Uytvanck.
Serena will now concentrate solely on trying to extend her final tournament in singles, where she will take on Australia’s Ajla Tomljanovic in the third round on Friday in what could be her last ever tournament.
