For the second time in three matches, members of Gen X and Gen Z teamed up to upset a ranked women’s doubles duo at the U.S. Open.
Venus Williams, 45, and her 22-year-old playing partner, Canadian Leylah Fernandez, knocked off the No. 12-seeded tandem of Russian Ekaterina Alexandrova and China’s Shuai Zhang, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals of the year’s final Grand Slam event.
Their prize for winning: a date with the top-seeded team of Taylor Townsend and the Czech Republic’s Katerina Siniakova. That duo dispatched of Columbia’s Camila Osorio and China’s Yue Yuan, 6-2, 6-2, setting up Wednesday’s marquee match-up.
Williams and Fernandez came together at the outset of the tournament and earned a wild-card entry. They opened Thursday with a 7-6 (4), 6-3 victory over the sixth-seeded team of Lyudmyla Kichenok of Ukraine and Ellen Perez of Australia, then defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Japan’s Eri Hozumi, 7-6 (1), 6-1 on Saturday.
The duo was opportunistic on Monday, converting 4 of 5 break point chances.
After breaking serve in the second game of the match, Williams-Fernandez jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but gave the break back in the fifth game and found the set all square at 3-3.
But they fended off a break point on their next service game and won 10 of the last 11 points to take the first set.
The same scenario played out after six games of the second set and the end result was similar. Receiving serve at 3-3, the American and Canadian rallied from 40-15 down to break serve and won 12 of the next 15 points to close out the match.
Fernandez has described Williams’ approach to sit-downs as mostly inspirational.
“There’s not a lot of strategy talk,” Fernandez said in the post-match on-court interview. “I have full confidence in Venus, and I hope she has full confidence in me.”
As for Venus, who is giving her pointers? The answer is pretty obvious: her famous sister Serena.
“Really, she’s so happy for Leylah and I, and she’s giving us advice,” Venus Williams said during her on-court interview. “We just need her in the box. So my message is: Serena, you need to show up.”
Venus and Serena Williams won 14 Grand Slam doubles titles, including a pair (1999, 2009) at the U.S. Open.
–Field Level Media
