(ThyBlackMan.com) New York City was again the center of the tennis universe as the 2025 U.S. Open tennis tournament recently captured the attention of die-hard tennis fans and casual sports fans in late August and early September. The TV ratings were really good for the men’s singles final between Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, which has now arguably become the new great men’s tennis rivalry given their combined recent dominance with men’s Grand Slam tennis championships. Another interesting storyline of the 2025 U.S. Open featuring a new format of mixed doubles competition that included several star tennis players participating including one of the all-time great women’s tennis players, Venus Williams. Although Venus and her sister Serena are no longer are full time WTA tennis players, their impact was seen throughout the 2025 U.S. Open in various ways.
Serena Williams and Venus Williams are both among the greatest women’s tennis players of all time with Serena making a strong claim as the best of all time. Their story has been well chronicled including a 2021 major feature film starring actor Will Smith that focused on their father and long-time tennis coach, Richard Williams. Both Venus and Serena were excellent tennis players in sport that hasn’t been historically welcoming to African/Black women yet they managed to excel for a long time and did so as themselves while inspiring others.
During the 2025 U.S. Open, 45-year-old Venus Williams drew tennis fans back to rooting for her and her 22-year-old women’s doubles partner Leylah Fernandez as they made a surprising but fun journey to the U.S. Open women’s doubles quarterfinals before losing to the top-seeded duo of Taylor Townsend and Katerina Siniakova. The 29-year-old Townsend hugged Williams after the match and later commented to the crowd that “Growing up watching Venus and (her sister) Serena, for me and my sister, it was an inspiration. It was an honor to share the court today.” One of the tangible impacts of the Williams sisters greatest for nearly two decades was African/Black girls aspiring to become tennis players like those sisters and making it to the highest level of professional women’s tennis as Taylor Townsend has.
Unfortunately, Townsend found herself in a large media firestorm following her own U.S. Open second-round women’s singles match against Jelena Ostapenko. After Townsend defeated Ostapenko, the two shared some strong words after the two players shook hands. According to Townsend, Ostapenko “told me I have no class, I have no education and to see what happens when we get outside the U.S.” Those words from the European Jelena Ostapenko drew deserved criticism to her considering the comments about “no education” that didn’t seem to make sense as it relates to tennis but were considered to have racial undertones considering her opponent. Venus Williams complimented the way Taylor Townsend handled the situation saying, “It was a lot of drama but Taylor handled it amazing. As a mom, the way she handled it — her son is watching.”
One of the legacies of the Williams sisters includes being a female athlete that understands the importance of understanding navigating being a female athlete as Venus Williams has displayed in her work towards increasing the pay for female athletes and even being a mom as an athlete as her sister Serena navigated in her return to tennis following the birth of her first child. Those traits are also seen in one of the most famous current tennis players in the world, Naomi Osaka. During the U.S. Open, she defeated Coco Gauff, another young African/Black female tennis player that has previously been inspired by the Williams sisters. Although both Venus Williams and Serena Williams no longer are winning Grand Slam tennis tournaments as they did during the 2000s, their impact on tennis is still felt decades later. Those weeks in New York City showed the “Williams sisters’ effect” is still present.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines
