Serena and Venus Williams Reunite in Cincinnati Doubles Tonight

Fourteen Grand Slam doubles titles. Three Olympic gold medals. And tonight, after a gap of nearly four years, Serena Williams and Venus Williams share a tennis court again as a doubles team.

The sisters open their campaign at the Cincinnati Open on Monday evening at 7 p.m. ET on Grandstand Court, competing together for the first time since their second-round exit at the 2022 US Open. Their opponents in the Round of 32: world No. 11 Marta Kostyuk and American Peyton Stearns, a pairing that also holds a doubles wild card. The match will be broadcast on Tennis Channel and streamed on Fubo in the United States.

The road back to Cincinnati

Serena's return to professional tennis has been one of the defining stories of the 2026 season. After stepping away from the sport following the 2022 US Open, she began competing again in the early summer, gradually building match sharpness. She partnered Victoria Mboko in a doubles event at Queen's Club and later paired with Karolína Muchová in Berlin before earning a singles wild card at Wimbledon — where she won her first-round match but sustained a knee injury in the second round against Australia's Maya Joint, forcing her to withdraw from the planned doubles reunion with Venus at the All England Club.

Cincinnati has become the venue where that reunion finally happens. Serena chose not to enter the singles draw here, saving her body for doubles. "Cincinnati Open is one place I would never miss," she said upon arriving in Ohio. "When I decided to play a few tournaments, I said, 'You know what, Cincinnati Open is one place I would never miss.'"

Venus's difficult week in Ohio

Venus, 46, arrived in Cincinnati holding a singles wild card earned after strong results at the Washington DC Open earlier this summer. Her singles campaign, however, ended quickly: Colombia's Emiliana Arango — a qualifier ranked 95th in the world — defeated her 6-2, 6-2 in a brisk encounter on Friday. The result extended Venus's singles losing streak to 13 consecutive matches, a painful sequence for a seven-time Grand Slam singles champion. With the singles behind her, Venus can now channel her complete focus toward the doubles alongside her sister.

The opponents: Kostyuk and Stearns

The Williams sisters' path through Cincinnati begins against a formidable pairing. Marta Kostyuk has been one of the most consistent performers on the WTA tour in 2026, sitting at No. 11 in the world and having reached the third round of the singles draw here before falling to a seeded opponent. Peyton Stearns, a native of Dayton, Ohio, brings with her the advantage of home support and a bold, attacking game that has served her well on hard courts. The fact that both pairings received wild cards makes this first-round clash all the more unusual.

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Grandstand Court will be one of the more atmospheric venues in Cincinnati on Monday evening. A crowd invested in the Williams sisters' story — and plenty curious to see how Serena's knee holds up — can be expected from the first ball.

A legacy that stretches across two decades

Serena and Venus Williams are the most decorated doubles pairing in tennis history. Their 14 Grand Slam titles together include victories at all four majors, and they claimed gold at three separate Olympic Games: Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004, and London in 2012. Their last competitive doubles appearance together was the 2022 US Open, where they lost to Lucie Hradecká and Linda Nosková in the second round.

Whether tonight's match against Kostyuk and Stearns signals the start of a deep run or simply another chapter in Serena's gradual rebuild, the Williams sisters will take the Grandstand Court with the weight of that history — and the US Open, less than three weeks away — very much at the front of their minds.