Sisters Venus (left) and Serena Williams take part in a news conference during media day prior to the US Open tennis tournament in New York on August 23.
NEW YORK (AP):
They share a family and a sport. They have sponsors and coaches in common, too, along with a level of Grand Slam success unmatched by any other active player.
Venus and Serena Williams don't do absolutely everything as a team, though. When it came time yesterday to prepare for their all-Williams quarter-final at the United States Open, the sisters lined up on adjacent courts, hitting beside - not with - each other.
They often practice together. Not this time. Not with what's at stake late today in their 17th meeting as professionals. Their father, who along with their mother coaches both women, went back and forth, keeping tabs on his racket-wielding daughters.
Later, the side-by-side training sessions done, the sisters caught separate rides away from Flushing Meadows. As Serena walked alone to the parking lot, checking for text messages on her pink cellphone, she was asked if it becomes less tough to have to look across the net during a match and see Venus standing there.
"It does," Serena said. "Each time, it gets easier."
Defeated each other
Both siblings have defeated the other eight times. The series also is tied at 5-5 in showdowns at major championships.
Their title match at Wimbledon in July - when Venus earned her fifth title at the All England Club and denied Serena what would have been her third - was filled with power and precision. It was the quality of play they nearly always manage to produce against other women, but have had trouble replicating when facing one another. Finally, it seems, they can forget temporarily that they're sisters and swing freely.
"It's my career and her career," Serena said on Monday after beating Severine Bremond of France 6-2, 6-2 in the fourth round. "I know she can definitely bury it, so I can do the same thing."
Venus sounded a similar note after her 6-1, 6-3 victory over number nine-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland.
Looking ahead to the quarter-finals, Venus said of facing Serena: "That will be a huge milestone - to get by her to win this cham-pionship. That's pretty much how I see it, as trying to win the tournament."
Each Williams won the US Open twice: Serena in 1999 and 2002, Venus in 2000 and 2001. Their meeting in the 2001 title match at Flushing Meadows was the first time sisters played each other in a major final since Maud and Lillian Watson decided the very first Wimbledon championship - in 1884.
Venus and Serena played again in the 2002 U.S. Open final, part of a span in which they met in five of six Grand Slam championship matches. That was back when both spent time at number one and were far and away the dominant figures in women's tennis.
"Obviously, we were playing very well then," Venus said. "Things happen. Life happened. You can't always predict it."
Long stretches of inactivity, due in part to injuries, led to slides in the rankings - Serena is number three, Venus number eight - which is why the luck of the draw came into play at the US Open and they were sent to the same section of the tournament bracket.
Venus was asked before the US Open began whether she and her younger sister can once again be numbers one and two in the rankings.
"That's the plan," she said, "but I don't think either one of us is aiming for 2."
Meanwhile, third-seeded Novak Djokovic overcame hip, ankle and stomach ailments to outlast Tommy Robredo 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3 and reach the quarter-finals.
