Serena, Venus both win 6-2, 6-1 in Paris

HOWARD FENDRICH

PARIS — First it was Serena Williams’ turn to overpower an opponent 6-2, 6-1 on Court Suzanne Lenglen.

Shortly after that was over Thursday, her older sister Venus entered the very same French Open arena and won by the very same score.

A bit like pas?

“It’s a little surreal sometimes, because it has been so long. old times, n’est-ce They’ve both been out here almost 20 years,” said their sister, Isha Price, who was in the stands for both matches.

“It was nice to have them play back-to-back and not have to move,” Price added with a laugh. “It’s so interesting that their scoreline was the same. It was really nice to be there for that.”

Back in 2002, when neither was yet 22, the American siblings contested the final at Roland Garros, one of their eight all-in-thefamily Grand Slam title matches — and they haven’t played each other at any stage in Paris since.

That’s due in part to Venus’ troubles at the clay-court tournament, where, now nearly 36, she moved into the third round for the first time since 2010 by relinquishing only three games in 54 minutes against American qualifier Louisa Chirico. Defending champion Serena’s similarly simple victory against 81st-ranked Teliana Pereira of Brazil lasted 12 minutes longer.

The sisters — No. 1-seeded Serena, No. 9 Venus — even got a chance to cross paths and catch up briefly between their nearly identical matches. Serena faced one break point; Venus zero. Serena compiled a 31-6 edge in winners; Venus’s margin was 22-6. Serena made 17 unforced errors; Venus 15.

If some spectators were pleased that a single ticket allowed them to see one Williams, then the other, the players themselves said they don’t really find the time to savor such events.

“We’re unfortunately really focused on our match. And I say ‘unfortunately,’ because in a few years, we’ll be like, ‘Wow, that’s a great moment,’” the 34-year-old Serena said. “But right now, we have to be focused on what we want to do in going out there and winning the match.” Venus agreed. “We focus more on the match at hand, and we both have a job to do, and that’s to try to get to the next round,” she said. “We focus