Serena Williams avoids post-match interview at US Open after doubles defeat

After the epic doubles battle in the first round of the US Open, and the related defeat in the third set against the pair Hao-Ching Chan and Maya Joint, Serena Williams left her sister in the locker room, fleeing as quickly as possible from Flushing Meadows without looking back.

This is the background, told by the specialized site Bounces, of the failed, highly anticipated interview of the two women who made the history of tennis in the USA. Having returned to the court together at the US Open for the first time after four years of absence, the Williams sisters were not fined by the USTA for this lack of respect towards the press which was also condemned by the International Tennis Writers Association. "It would have been nice to hear Serena and Venus talk about their experience of playing together again at the US Open and reflect on their respective futures," Itwa president Simon Cambers wrote in X.

It is tradition that all the athletes who have received interview requests from the accredited media give themselves to the press after the match: at the Open no one shied away, not even those who, like the Williams, had suffered painful elimination from the tournament.

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The sisters, who on September 4th the Usta had awarded the first night on the gigantic stage of the Arthur Ashe, had spoken to journalists recently in Cincinnati after having been eliminated, also on that occasion in the first round. Venus herself at the US Open did not escape the press after being beaten at the start of the tournament even though the match against Sofia Kenin ended after two in the morning.

Venus had regularly gone to the locker room as players usually do after a match and probably would not have held back, but Serena, as soon as the match was over, got into the car and disappeared into the New York night. The organizers had no choice but to cancel the interview with an announcement without explanation. However, it was not the first time that the sisters snubbed the press. According to Bounces, they would have done so on 15-20 occasions in which (but not this time) they were fined: the heaviest fine was the $5,000 fine imposed on Venus for missing the press conference after her defeat in the first round of the 2016 Australian Open. Fines are usually not made public in tournaments on the WTA circuit; normally, however, they are in Grand Slam tournaments.