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Venus, Serena Serve Up Doubles Victory

  • Posted: Jan 01, 1970

LONDON, Great Britain – Serena Williams and Venus Williams imposed their doubles dominance against the No.11 seeded team of Andreja Klepac and Katarina Srebotnik in their Wimbledon doubles opener to advance 7-5, 6-3.

The sisters started out sluggish in the first set as Venus, who finished her two hour and twenty-four minute marathon singles match against Maria Sakkari about two hours earlier, was broken twice to allow the Slovaks to build up a hefty 4-1 lead in the first set.

After trading breaks for 5-2, the Williams sisters broke again after Klepac couldn’t get out of the way of a Serena volley fast enough. Venus held serve for the first time just as the two started to kick it into high gear.

With Srebotnik serving for the set at 5-4, Venus fired a forehand long to give the Slovakian team three set points but immediately redeemed herself by saving one with a lunging volley on the stretch. She ripped a backhand passing shot up the middle of the court to clinch the break and level the score 5-5.

Finally fired up, the Williams sisters dropped just one point in the next two games to take the first set 7-5. They continued their romp into the second set, where they broke twice to get ahead 4-0. Klepac and Srebotnik stopped the streak of nine games in a row by getting one of the breaks back, but it wasn’t enough to turn the tide as Serena and Venus took the match for their first Wimbledon doubles win in two years.

Up next for the sibling duo are the Belgian team of Elise Mertens and An-Sophie Mestach, who took out the all-American team of Nicole Gibbs and Irina Falconi, 7-6(3), 6-1.

Another sibling duo moves on as the No.3 seeded sisters Chan Yung-Jan and Chan Hao-Ching battled past Ashleigh Barty and Laura Robson in a comfortable straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.

They’re joined in the second round by the No.13 seeds Vania King and Alla Kudryavtseva after the Birmingham finalists came back to dispatch Nao Hibino and Alicija Rosolska 3-6, 6-1, 6-3, and by Darija Jurak and Anastasia Rodionova, who are fresh off of a title win at the Aegon International Eastbourne and downed the No.9 seeds Yifan Xu and Saisai Zheng 7-6(6), 2-6, 7-5.

More to come…

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