It’s Serena vs Venus in Round 3
NEWYORK: Serena and Venus Williams set up a 30th career meeting on Wednesday as the US Open reeled from a sexism row sparked when a player changed her shirt on court.
Six-time champion Serena eased into Friday’s third-round encounter against her sister with a 6-2, 6-2 win over German world No 101 Carina Witthoeft. Venus, the 2000 and 2001 champion, made the third round with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Camila Giorgi of Italy.
The upcoming match will be the earliest the sisters have met at a Slam since the 1998 Australian Open in what was also their first ever clash. It will be their sixth face-off in New York.
“It will be incredibly hard,” said Serena before jokingly hitting back at Venus’s claim that when they last met at a Slam in the final of the 2017 Australian Open, her sister had an advantage as it was “two against one.”
Since Venus won their first ever clash in Australia, Serena, bidding for a record-equalling 24th Grand Slam title, has built up an advantage over the last two decades, enjoying a 17-12 head-tohead superiority. Meanwhile, defending champion Sloane Stephens also made the third round with a 4-6, 7-5, 6-2 win over qualifier Anhelina Kalinina.
SEXISM ROW
Victoria Azarenka was amongst the first players to condemn the United States Tennis Association (USTA) for handing French player Alize Cornet a code violation for changing her shirt on court on Tuesday. The incident sparked an immediate storm over sexism. The Belarusian said the USTA displayed double stan-
dards for sanctioning Cornet while male players routinely remove their shirts courtside when the heat and humidity bite.
The USTA admitted they were wrong to hand Cornet a warning for slipping off her shirt on court.