Venus Williams, Serena Williams (Image via X)
Serena Williams thinks both she and her sister, Venus Williams, would have won more Grand Slam singles titles if they had not clashed with each other. Serena ended her career with 23 Majors in singles, the most in the Open Era. Venus on the other hand lifted seven singles in Major events.
They locked horns with each other 31 times on the WTA Tour, with Serena winning 19 of those matches. Out of the 31 matches, they met 16 times in Grand Slam events, with the 1998 Australian Open being the first tournament. Serena had an 11-5 head-to-head in the 16 matches, but was 7-2 in Grand Slam finals.
During an interview, Serena was asked about a comment made by her and Venus’ former coach Rick Macci. The 70-year-old had said that had Venus not faced Serena, she would have won 15 singles Majors.
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.
Serena Williams said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit
Both the Williams sisters reached the World No. 1 rankings in both singles and doubles. In doubles, they won 14 Grand Slam titles. Along with these titles, both of them are Grand Slam mixed doubles champions. The pair of Serena and Max Mirnyi won the Wimbledon and US Open, while Venus and Justin Gimelstob were Australian Open and French Open champions.
Serena Williams says competition with Venus Williams never affected their personal relationship
In that same interview, Serena Williams said the cut-throat competition never affected her relationship with Venus Williams, which was also one of the reasons behind their success. Serena revealed she ‘actually lived’ with Venus until she got married to Alexis Ohanian, and had also some ‘difficult conversations’ with her as both figured out how not to ruin their close bond.
Serena Willliams and Venus Williams (Image via Imago)
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.
