Venus eclipsed by Serena Williams, but support never wavered

There was no glamorous Vogue photo shoot for Venus Williams. No expertly crafted retirement essay. No star-studded, prime-time goodbye party scheduled for her first-round match.

While the tennis world pays tribute to Serena Williams in what is expected to be her final U.S. Open, there is a big unanswered question lurking in the background.

Could this be the last hurrah for Venus, too?

“Venus, nobody is even talking about Venus,” tennis great and ESPN commentator Chris Evert said. “She’s such a different personality than Serena, and she’s not getting a lot of attention. Are they going to both retire at the same time? Is Venus going to keep going and Serena is going to retire? I think that’s an interesting question.”

It is, given that at age 42, Venus is the oldest player on the tour and 15 months older than her sister. Venus has not spoken about her future since Serena announced her retirement, but she certainly will be asked about it in her news conference after her first-round match against Alison Van Uytvanck on Tuesday.

If this is the end of the line for Venus, too, we shouldn’t be so surprised that it has come down like this. A great player in her own right with seven major singles titles and appearances in 16 Grand Slam finals, Venus has long lived in the shadow of her flashy, extroverted and more accomplished younger sister.

Yet without Venus, there likely would be no Serena. And there might not have been a Naomi Osaka, Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys and Coco Gauff. It was Venus who did the heavy lifting early on that allowed her sister to be the outspoken icon that inspired a whole new generation of women of color.

Venus has always been comparatively more self-contained and private than her younger sister. She also has shown more grace and patience both on the court and with the tennis media, which has won her a lot of fans over the years.

Yet she has never been afraid to speak out when she believed she needed to, paving the way for her sister to be the outspoken megastar she is.

“I’m tall. I’m black. Everything’s different about me. Just face the facts,” a 17-year-old Venus told reporters in 1997, when she became the first unseeded women’s player in the Open era to reach the final of the U.S. Open.

Venus also was a leader in the fight for equal pay for male and female players. In 2006, her essay on the subject drew support from then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair. A year later, both Wimbledon and the French Open announced they would offer equal pay to all competitors.

Venus has always been her sister’s biggest fan, continuing to nurture her even as her own star was being eclipsed.

Imagine what it is like to be lapped by your younger sibling. It’s something that John McEnroe, whose younger brother Patrick was a less successful professional, just cannot fathom. McEnroe believes it takes a unique kind of personality to be as loyal and supportive as Venus has been to her sister over the years.

“If my younger brother blew by me and was better than me, I don’t think I would have handled it as well as Venus has,” said McEnroe, now a commentator for ESPN. “She’s done a lot for Serena, supporting her and being with her when [Venus] was at the top and the dad is saying, which you can’t forget, that the younger sister is going to be even better.”

The sisters have always had a unique bond. Perhaps that’s because the us-against-the-world mentality they had to develop to succeed as outsiders in their sport just transcended any competitive feelings they had toward one another.

That bond will be on full display for perhaps one last time this week as the two were granted a wild-card entry to play doubles together. Their first match, which will be either Wednesday or Thursday, marks the first time the sisters have teamed up since the 2018 French Open. They have won 14 majors in women’s doubles.

Somehow it seems only fitting that they would say goodbye together, each in their own way.

By Barbara Barker

barbara.barker@newsday.commeanbarb

Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.