Venus Williams Reveals She Wasn’t Aware of Unique Record With Serena Williams Until 14th Grand Slam Final

Veteran tennis star Venus Williams has opened up on the incredible doubles record that she holds with her younger sister and 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams.

The pair has a career haul of 14 Grand Slam titles, which is the highest in women’s tennis. What’s more, they have never been beaten in a Grand Slam final.

Venus was reminded by a reporter that she hadn’t lost a Grand Slam doubles final with Serena

While the world knows about this remarkable record and career milestone, Venus, in her latest Instagram post, has revealed that she wasn’t aware of it till the pair reached and won their 14th career doubles title at Wimbledon.

The seven-time Grand Slam champion shared an image of the siblings with their first Grand Slam trophy at the 1999 French Open on her Instagram page and tagged it with a long message.

“I didn’t even realize this until right before our 14th final at Wimbledon and a reporter mentioned that we had never lost a Grand Slam final,” Venus wrote.

The 40-year-old said that to the reporter’s comment, she responded with “Ok, no pressure”.

Venus Williams recalls how she lost focus in maiden Grand Slam final with Serena Williams at 1999 French Open

The match in question against the pair of former Grand Slam champion Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova saw the siblings come out on the winning side of an intense, nerve-wracking contest.

Venus and Serena took the opening set comfortably at 6-3 but dropped the next which went to a tie-breaker.

However, the pair then rallied back to quell the spirited challenge by the rival pair and lift their maiden doubles Grand Slam, winning 6-3, 6-7, 8-6.

Sharing her thoughts on the final, Venus said that from a position where the pair was sitting pretty with a set to the good and leading 5-3 in the second, “hubris” got the better of her.

“I got overconfident and didn’t focus on winning each and every point. I figured the title was ours,” the American said, adding that she couldn’t have been further from the truth as they conceded the second set and lost momentum.

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She recalled becoming “the exact opposite of confident” in the deciding set and it wasn’t until the latter stages of it that she regained focus and closed the final in their favor.