With the current suspension of the ATP and WTA Tours, USOpen.org is reliving some of the biggest tennis matches in the tournament's history in photos. In our latest featured match, we look back at the 2008 US Open women's singles quarterfinal between Serena and Venus Williams.
Watch a live stream of this classic match on Facebook Live and Twitter on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET. The full match will be posted on Sunday on the US Open YouTube Channel.
In a quarterfinal that was fit for a final, Serena Williams defeated her older sister Venus at the 2008 US Open in the most competitive matchup between the sisters in Flushing Meadows.
Serena fought hard for the victory, coming back in each set to win both in tiebreaks, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (7). She would eventually go on to claim the championship that year—her third at the Open and the ninth major title of her career.
"It's really just unfortunate it had to be in the quarters," Serena said, of facing her sister at that stage of the tournament.
Here's a look back in photos at this highly competitive, high-quality match, which was voted the best women’s singles match of 2008 by Tennis magazine.
The Williams sisters' 2008 quarterfinal was the 17th time they played each other on tour and the 11th time at a Grand Slam. It was their fourth career meeting at the Open, with Venus holding the edge over Serena, 2-1, heading into the match.
The sisters also met in the Wimbledon final a few months earlier, with Venus claiming her fifth title at the All England Club in the first Grand Slam final they had played against each other since 2003. They also teamed up to win the women’s doubles title in London that year.
Serena, ranked third in the world and seeded fourth at the 2008 Open, had dropped just 14 games total in her first four matches of the tournament, with wins over Kateryna Bondarenko, Elena Vesnina, Ai Sugiyama and Severine Beltrame.
Ranked No. 8 and seeded No. 7, Venus also had a smooth run to the quarters, losing only 15 games in matches against Samantha Stosur, Rossana De Los Ríos, Alona Bondarenko and No. 9 seed Agnieszka Radwanska.
Serena, 26, trailed 5-3 in both sets and faced a total of 10 set points but battled her way back in the epic match. She was down, 6-4, in the opening tiebreak but won four straight points to win the first set.
The 28-year-old Venus, who blasted serves up to 125 mph, wasted three set points when she served for the second set at 5-3, 40-0, and a fourth when Serena served while down 6-5.
In the second-set tiebreak, Venus led 6-3, but Serena won six of the last seven points to claim the nearly two-and-a-half-hour match. "I can't say I was disappointed," Serena said after the match. "You want the best for her, but in that situation you want to win, too."
"I felt like I was always in control," Venus said. "If it was someone else, I definitely feel like I would have won the match."
Serena went on to defeat No. 6 seed Dinara Safina, 6-3, 6-2, in the semifinals and No. 2 Jelena Jankovic, 6-4, 7-5, for her third US Open title, and she then returned to No. 1 in the world after the tournament. She has gone on to win a record six women's singles titles (tied with Chris Evert) in New York, adding three straight trophies from 2012-14 to the ones she captured in 1999, 2002 and 2008.
