Serena Williams has achieved countless honours in her career, but there’s one she missed out on which her sister Venus cost her from getting.
The 73-time WTA title winner ended her career with 23 Grand Slams – a record in the Open Era on the women’s side.
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Venus has eight, a number that is incredible but slightly goes underrated due to the unprecedented success her sister enjoyed.
The sisters are separated by just one year in age with Venus 44 and Serena being 43, meaning they faced each other on a number of occasions.
The pair went onto face each other 31 times with Serena winning the head to head by 19-12, a 61.3 win percentage over her sister.
Incredibly, 16 of their meetings came at Grand Slams with Serena winning 11-5, nine of these matches would go on to be in Grand Slam finals, with Serena winning seven of them.
Such domination by the sisters was an incredible sight and unprecedented in elite level sport but it begs the question how individually successful their careers would have been had their careers not came at the same time.
Serena recently spoke on this topic and was adamant that Venus would have double digit major titles while she would have over 30.
“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,” Williams said at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit.
Had Serena won the two finals that she lost to Venus she would have equalled and surpassed Margaret Court’s Grand Slam singles’ record, which stands at 24. Although, only 11 of them, with the last coming in 1973, came in the Open Era.
Six of the Williams sisters’ Grand Slams finals came between 2001-03, with Serena winning five of them, such a short period of intense tennis would have had an emotional toll on the pair.
However, Serena actually revealed that the sisters were so close to each other – even living together during this period – that their relationship stayed strong.
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The pair last faced each at Lexington in 2020
“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,’” 43-year-old Serena said.
“We had to figure out a way to work it out. We had to communicate, you know, we had to have those difficult conversations. I think we just, without even realising it, leaned into that. As long as I was winning.”
Irrespective of the potential success could have, both players enjoyed careers that seems them rated as amongst the best players to have ever played tennis.
Serena Williams would retire in September 2022 meanwhile Venus Williams has remained defiant, still active and has a 0-2 record in 2024 earning $53,300.
