Serena Williams Returns to US Open with Family by Her Side

Serena Williams is back under the lights at Flushing Meadows, but this time the story stretches well beyond the baseline.

Her husband, Alexis Ohanian, has been quietly curating the family’s return to New York on social media, sharing images that say as much about this new chapter as any box score. In one photograph, he stands with an arm wrapped around Olympia while their eldest daughter carries her younger sister, Adira, as they all watch Williams and Carlos Alcaraz on court. The caption is simple, pointed, and utterly domestic: “Always cheering for mama @serenawilliams (and @carlitosalcarazz !!).”

The scene could have been any family outing to a tennis match. It wasn’t. It was Serena Williams’ first competitive appearance at the US Open since 2022, and it came in a revamped mixed doubles event that paired her with the men’s world star Alcaraz.

The results mattered, of course. They always do with Williams. The wildcard duo opened with a 5-3, 4-1 win over Erin Routliffe and Lloyd Glasspool on Arthur Ashe Stadium, a scoreline that hinted at sharp instincts and quick chemistry. Their run ended in the quarter-finals against Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli, a reminder that this is a new arena for Serena, one where rhythm and timing are still returning.

Yet the real weight of the week settled on a different announcement.

Serena and Venus Williams have accepted a wildcard into the women’s doubles, reuniting one of the sport’s greatest partnerships on the same courts where they helped redefine what dominance looks like. They will open against the 14th seeds, Chan Hao-ching and Maya Joint, in what will be their first doubles appearance together at the US Open since 2022.

Career Highlights

For two players who turned sibling synergy into a weapon, the numbers remain staggering. Fourteen Grand Slam women’s doubles titles together. Two of those in New York, in 1999 and 2009, bookending a decade in which their power game reshaped the women’s tour.

Serena’s individual record sits in its own stratosphere: 23 Grand Slam singles titles, the most by any woman in the Open era. Six US Open crowns, seven Wimbledon titles, seven Australian Open trophies. The kind of résumé that usually signals a clean break from competition, a career sealed and framed.

Yet here she is again at Arthur Ashe Stadium, four years after stepping away from professional tennis following the 2022 US Open, walking back into a place that once defined her and now shares that role with something else entirely.

Motherhood

Williams has spoken openly about how different it feels to compete now that Olympia and Adira are old enough to sit in the stands and watch her, to see their mother as more than the person who reads bedtime stories or volunteers at school. The roar of Ashe now runs alongside the quiet rituals of family life.

Asked by Byrdie in 2024 what brings her the greatest happiness, she didn’t hesitate: “My kids.” Then came the line that undercuts even the most glittering trophy cabinet. “I can’t say that a Wimbledon trophy holds a candle to volunteering at my kid’s school.”

That perspective has seeped into the glimpses she allows the public. Over Easter this year, Williams posted rare family photographs with Olympia, Adira and Ohanian on Instagram. The caption stripped away any sense of ambiguity about where her priorities lie.

“I don’t share these moments often, but being their mom is my favourite place to be. I’m with them 363 out of 365 days a year – and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. This weekend was everything.”

So when she walks back onto Ashe now, flanked by Venus, with her daughters somewhere in the stands and Ohanian’s camera never too far away, the stakes feel different. The competitor remains, the records still tower, but the narrative has shifted.

This is no farewell tour, no simple nostalgia act. It is one of the game’s greatest players choosing, on her own terms, to stitch one more chapter into a career already overflowing with them — while two small faces watch, learning in real time what legacy actually looks like.