Serena vs. Venus #31: By the Numbers

The latest chapter in one of the greatest rivalries in tennis will be written on Thursday in a suburb of Lexington, Ky., as Serena and Venus Williams face off for the 31st time on the WTA Tour.

The sisters will play in the second round of the Top Seed Open presented by Bluegrass Orthopaedics, the first WTA event on U.S. soil in nearly a year as the tour's restart continues following the COVID-19 pandemic. Top seed Serena and unseeded Venus, who is ranked world No. 67, each seek a berth in the quarterfinals in their first tournament following the break.

Though all eyes were on a potential meeting between the sisters when the draw was revealed, the resumption of their rivalry was all but a guarantee: each woman had to first come through her opening round match on Tuesday. First up, Serena was pushed to the brink—and was five points from defeat—against fellow American Bernarda Pera before rallying for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-1 win, while Venus showed some of her vintage best later in the day to take out former world No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam winner Victoria Azarenka of Belarus, 6-3, 6-2. 

Serena and Venus will take the court against each other on Thursday for the first time in nearly two years, dating back to Serena's 6-1, 6-2 win in the third round of the 2018 US Open. The pair were expected to play last year in the second round in Rome, but Serena withdrew prior to the match with a left knee injury, handing Venus a walkover. 

Despite a head-to-head history that spans across four different decades, the second-round match in Lexington also represents a bit of uncharted territory for the sisters, as they are not accustomed to meeting so early in a tournament. The pair's first-ever meeting came in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open—won by Venus, 7-6, 6-1—but they have not played in in the first two rounds of a tournament since then. (Although, they were drawn in the same round-robin group at the season-ending WTA Finals twice in 2008 and 2009.)

In fact, 24 of the pair's meetings overall have come in the quarterfinals or later, and Serena owns an 18-12 edge in the head-to-head to date. Twenty of their matches have been played on hard courts, with Serena holding an 11-9 record there. 

The second-round clash will be just the fourth match between the Williams sisters in the past five years. In the latter half of the 2010s, the rivalry was defined by a meeting in the 2017 Australian Open final—the sisters' first clash with a Grand Slam trophy at stake in eight years—that Serena played while in the early stages of pregnancy with her daughter, Alexis Olympia Ohanian, Jr. Over a year later at the 2018 BNP Paribas Open, Serena's first tournament following her maternity leave, she was beaten by Venus in the third round, 6-3, 6-4.

"It's so special. Who would've guessed that this draw would've happened—playing two former world No. 1s, Grand Slam champions... in the middle of Kentucky?" Venus said after winning her opener against Azarenka.

"This is what it is and these are great tests for me. Serena came back from the break and waited until the last minute to play her best tennis, and that's what champions are made of. Here we go again, number 31, and I'm looking forward to the next one after this, too."