NEW YORK — ESPN averaged 1.1 million viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 on Friday, Sept. 4, the night Serena Williams and Venus Williams played their first U.S. Open doubles match together since 2022. The network released the figures Wednesday.
Viewership peaked at 2.2 million between 9 and 9:15 p.m. CT. The sisters lost that night to Taiwan’s Hao-Ching Chan and Australia’s Maya Joint in a match tiebreaker. Friday’s coverage was up 17% from last year.
On Saturday, ESPN2 averaged another 1.1 million viewers, a 37% increase from last year. Through the third round, the tournament has averaged 846,000 viewers, ESPN’s largest audience through three rounds of the U.S. Open since 2022.
In 2022, Serena played what was expected to be the final tournament of her career. ESPN put the sisters’ first-round doubles match in prime time that year, the first doubles match the network had aired in that window. It averaged 2.2 million viewers, AP reported at the time. Serena’s third-round singles loss to Ajla Tomljanović the next night reached 4.8 million viewers and peaked at 6.9 million. It was the most-watched tennis match in ESPN’s 43-year history at that point.
Hao-Ching Chan And Maya Joint Beat Serena Williams And Venus Williams
Chan and Joint, the No. 14 seeds, won 6-3, 6-7 (6), 7-6 (10-7) in a match that lasted 3 hours, 2 minutes. It was played in the night session at Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Before the match, nine-time Grand Slam doubles champion Bethanie Mattek-Sands said the sisters’ opponents would be a little intimidated.
“The night match against the Williams sisters with the New York crowd, it’s going to be tough,” Mattek-Sands told CBS News.
After dropping the first set, Serena and Venus won the second-set tiebreaker 8-6. They trailed 4-1 in the third set and came back to tie it. In the 10-point match tiebreaker, the sisters led 5-0. Both double-faulted in the tiebreaker, which Chan and Joint won 10-7.
The U.S. Tennis Association said after the match that the sisters would not be available for comment. Serena and Venus are 27-8 in 10 U.S. Open doubles appearances. Their 14 Grand Slam doubles titles together include the 1999 and 2009 U.S. Opens. They also won Olympic doubles gold in 2000, 2008, and 2012.
Friday was Joint’s second win over Serena this summer. The Ashe crowd was about what Joint and Chan had expected.
“We expected a full stadium, everyone cheering for them, which pretty much was that,” Joint said. “But the atmosphere is something that, yeah, it’s super special. Not really going to get again with many other players.”
Serena Williams’ 2026 Return And Venus Williams’ 15th Straight Singles Loss
Serena, 44, came back this year after four years away from the tour. Her return to singles came at Wimbledon, where Joint beat her in three sets. The sisters then withdrew from Wimbledon doubles after Serena hurt her knee.
Their first doubles match together since 2022 came at the Cincinnati Open, where they lost a match tiebreaker to Marta Kostyuk and Peyton Stearns. The USTA announced their U.S. Open doubles wild card Aug. 26.
In the week before the main draw, Serena played the U.S. Open mixed doubles event with Carlos Alcaraz, the defending men’s champion. The pair won their first match together before losing in the quarterfinals to Belinda Bencic and Flavio Cobolli, 5-4 (4), 4-1. Earlier on Friday, Alcaraz beat Wu Yibing 6-3, 6-4, 6-1 to reach the round of 16.
“I think there is no better plan [than] to watch the doubles, the Williamses once again, while getting a treatment,” Alcaraz said. “I’m going to be ready for that.”
Venus, 46, played singles in New York on a wild card. Her first-round match against fellow American wild card Sofia Kenin did not start until midnight, and Kenin won 6-2, 7-6 (6) early Monday, Aug. 31. It was Venus’ 26th singles appearance at the U.S. Open.
The loss was her 15th straight in singles, dating to her last win in Washington in July 2025. Venus was not ready to weigh her future in tennis afterward.
“I don’t think I should have to,” Venus said while speaking with a small group of reporters, CBS News reported. “My mind is fully focused on that: how I recover from this completely insane evening and get ready for the next one.”
ESPN carries the women’s singles final Saturday at 3 p.m. CT. The men’s final is set for Sunday at 1 p.m. CT on ABC.
